#Creating a disaster so he can swoop in and save everyone from it

[taliaquinn]

Why Me!? Chapter 19

Authors Note:                                                                                            Hiya peeps and geeks, I finally published chapter 19. I hope you Peeps like it. Dont forget to reblog, comment and like!! (They make me happy)

“Think about it, why would she want to talk to you,” Chloe mumbled struggling to shake off the sleepiness “Right now she only sees you as the boy who refused to stand up for her, Against the girl that threatened her in the bathroom”. 

Adrien was silent at the other end of the phone. “She told you about Lila threatening her in the bathroom?” Nonono. That was the worst thing that could happen. Now rumors are going to spread.

Chloe could only scoff in response. She knew exactly what Adrien was worrying about.

“Pfft uh yeah, Mari told us everything, gotta say Adrien I wasn't that surprised when she told us, Kagami on the other hand….”

“SHE TOLD KAGAMI!?!?!?” Adrien shouted upset. Upset at Marinette for telling everyone, even Kagami. He’s noticed that Kagamis been blowing him off and sometimes even downright refusing to talk to him at social events they both attend. 

Marinette told Kagami and Chloe everything about Lila, Adrien, and Alya when she called them a week ago. Chloe's heart broke at hearing the girl sob. Kagami was enraged, in fact, that was what spurred her into starting to plot revenge. Karma would wreak havoc on everyone who dared hurt the bluenette

“Yes Adrien Kagami Knows and before you go off and get all flustered, No we haven't spread rumors or told anyone. At Marinette's insistence." She spat. Adrien didn't deserve to be protected. But poor Marinette still refused to take any drastic actions.

“Thank you, Chloe” The Model still had the nerve to thank her and ignore Marinette's kind act. She's had enough. Sitting up straighter in bed Chloe opened her laptop and started typing an email to Marinette.

“You know who else she’s been helping Adrikins?” she said in a honey-laced voice, sickeningly sweet. 

This familiar voice caused a sense of growing dread in Adrien's stomach. He wasn't talking to P. M Chloe aka “Post Marinette” Chloe anymore, he was talking to the old Chloe Bourgeois, and Plagg help him if he somehow pissed her off. Swallowing down the sense of dread he asked.

“Who?”

“Nino, you remember him right? The guy you claimed was your best friend? But then again you turned your back on him, that seems to be a trend with you these days”

Nino. Of course, he remembered about Nino. Nino called him tearfully seeking comfort from his best friend after his breakup with Alya. Adrien could only weakly offer some comfort. HEY! He was dealing with his own stuff. Ladybug stole Plagg from him. He wasn’t Chat Noir anymore. Also, he didn't want to get dragged into the conflict. Plus he thought that Nino was overreacting. Alya deserved a second chance. Right?

“W-we’re still best friends” he stuttered out. Nino has Marinette's number!? That's great he can get her number from him!!!!

“Hmmph yeah sure whatever helps you sleep at night.” Chloe had the right to speak her mind. She was tired and grumpy. A deadly combination. If she had eye bags in the morning because of him she was going to block the boy,

 “I'm beginning to think that you’re new bestie is Lila” she mentioned

“That's ridiculous, we're just friends”

Chloe scoffed. “Your standards for friends are ridiculously low. But whatever apparently sleazy Liars are your type”

Adrien was starting to get upset at all these sly remarks he was getting from Chloe. He called her for comfort. Who did she think she was? If he wanted sly comments he would have called Marinette, but he still didn't have her number. Wait a minute. She's been talking to Nino!!! He could just call Nino and get her Number from him!!! He didn't need Chloe! 

“Fine Chloe, you know what? turns out I don’t even need your help anymore,” He said smug, happy to have the upper hand. To be honest he half expected Chloe to beg him to not hang up on her.

“Why even bother calling me then?” that....was not the response he was expecting. Fine, it was probably all an act.

“I needed Marinette's number but then I realized that my bro Nino probably has it, so yeah I don’t need your help”

“But he b-” Ha now she was going to beg him not to hang upon him. Well, he wasn't going to give her the chance. 

“Goodbye Chloe” 

Hanging up he quickly tried to call Nino. After only receiving a dial tone, he shot him a few texts, expecting Nino to respond quickly. He always has.

After receiving none Adrien couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed. Nino probably forgot to charge his phone due to him still being sad over the breakup. This is why Adrien needs to convince Nino to get back together with Alya. He was a mess without her! His phone suddenly binged. Quickly checking, he was disappointed to see it was Chloe. Probably to try and get back on his good side. Ha.

Queen Bee: Nino told me to tell you that he is uh not in “The mood to deal with you and your b.s” tonight.

What!? No Chloe was obviously lying in some weird attempt at getting Payback. Adrien NEEDED to talk to Nino right now because Adrien was going to the states for some gala for the weekend! 

Adrikins: Chloe stop fooling around

Queen Bee: Trust me I'm not kidding around, I'm here trying to get some sleep and instead I'm serving as Nino's secretary apparently

Queen Bee: Leave him alone, if you had listened to me earlier you would have realized that Nino added your number to a nice Lil ol place known as the ~block list~

Adrikins: CHLOE YOU HAVE TO TALK TO HIM PLEASE DON'T LET HIM DO IT.

Queen Bee: hmmm let me think about it

At that Adrien let out a sigh of Relief, Chloe will talk some sense into Nino and everything will be back to normal between him and Nino. Even Marinette once he got her number from Nino!!

Queen Bee: I thought about it

Hope bloomed in Adrien's Chest, everything is finally going to be back to normal again!!

Queen Bee: N o

Queen Bee: You’re getting muted for the rest of the night, consider that payback for waking me up so early, I have a trip this weekend. I need all my beauty sleep, you should consider learning about it

Wait a minute if she is going where Adrien thinks she is then there's hope for him after all!!!

Queen Bee: Toodles~

Adrikins: Wait a minute where are you going this weekend

Queen Bee: None of your business

Wayne Manor                                                                                        Gotham, USA                                                                                                8:00 a.m

“Marinette, I’m just happy you managed to leave that toxic situation before it got worse,” Dick said as he engulfed Marinette in a hug, although not as strong since his ribs were still in pain. Dick slightly grimaced in anticipation of the humongous lecture he was going to get from Bruce later.

“Trust him, Mari, here in Gotham I always see..” Jason trailed off at Dicks pointed look “I mean WE always see....uh in the news how those situations escalate quickly," Yowch talk about a blunder. He still needed to get used to having a sibling who wasnt involved in the nightly adventures. "only not everyone is lucky enough to have Batman swoop in and save the day” Jason quickly added. He threw a prayer of thanks that his adorable baby sister was now safe in Gotham, well as safe as Gotham gets anyways.

Dick racked his brain looking for something to cheer up his little sister in his arms. For once his big brother instincts were being slightly overwhelmed. All of his siblings have gone through awful stuff. This isn't the first, and he doubts it's going to be the last time that he's been there to comfort one of his siblings, or friends for god's sake.  

“Wait!!! Dick, doesn't Bruce have that trip in a few days?” Jason piped up.

Oh, Crap. Dick almost forgot about that. Oh god, he couldn’t possibly subject Mari to that disaster….on the other hand it WOULD be a good distraction for her. Hmmm. 

“Fine, Mari, pack your bags, You’re not even going to school yet so you won't miss anything,” Dick announced.

“Pack my bags?” Marinette couldn't help but get a bad feeling at the sight of Dicks smirk.

“Yeah no, you’re right. Don't pack your bags make your dad pay for new clothes.” Jason teased. It's what he always did. Billionaire Brucie wouldn't even gawk at the price of a new pair of jeans. Heck, He was paying for his New Truck!!! 

“Wait where are we even going?” She asked slightly disturbed at the sight of Dicks growing grin.

“New York City”

Authors Message:                                                                                        I hope you guys enjoyed todays chaoter. Next chapter some new characters are going to enter the fray. Can you take a guess as to who they may be ;)                                                                                           Also Happy Belated Birthday to Our Beloved Timothy Jackson Drake  Fun fact I was listening to Hamilton was writing this chapter and its given me the idea to possibly create a Hamilton AU involving the Batfam and slight Adrinette, What do you guys think?

Taglist:

@purplesundaze @silvergold-swirl @k-poplunardreams @pepelachanel @laurcad123 @maribat-is-lifeblood @kass-is-weird @another-fan-of-anotherplan @damianette-is-life @amayakans @parallelparabox @miukiiu @valeks-princess @toodaloo-kangaroo @vixen-uchiha @thezestywalru @dreamykitty25 @pirats-pizzacanninibles @mochinek0 @shamefullove @mochegato @souleateralicestein @thestressmademedoit @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @aestheticnpoetic @mysupporthyperfixations @itsmeevie01

[meliaaizawa]

RESCUE TRAINING

Class 3-A goes through a rescue training exercise at the USJ.

Word count: a number

“WAIT! You’re telling me that you like Yasumori?” I heard my friend Noki exclaim to our friend Nakamura. I was pretty good friends with most of the other girls in my class, and though I didn’t hang out with them frequently, we all got to have our girl time in the locker room whenever we got ready for our class exercises. It was the time everyone inquired about each other’s crushes and any other “important” things that had to be said. We all came to an agreement during our first year that what’s discussed in the locker room stays in the locker room. Nakamura shrugged in response to Noki’s question. “I don’t know yet!! I guess I’m confused… I think part of me will always be in love with Shirakumo, but he’s been gone for over a year, so I think Yasumori is the next best option,” she replied. “NAKAMURA!! You should totally ask him out!” our friend Tamashiro chimed in. I shook my head and added, “sure, go ahead and ask him out, just don’t start the conversation with the fact that you think he’s subpar in comparison to Obo.”  The other girls all looked at me as if I had said something offensive and Nakamura retorted, “I genuinely do like Yasumori… he may not have been my first crush, but at least I actually have a chance to go out with him.” Noki nodded and added, “she has a point, though… do you really think you have a chance with your crush?”

My thought immediately went to Shota. Even on day one when he was grouchy and anti-social I found myself drawn to him. It took me a little while to get to know him, but the more I spent time with him, the more I found his sarcasm and moodiness endearing. Time was my greatest enemy, because as it passed, I just kept finding things that I loved about him… how he’s kind, hardworking, smart, and dedicated, and how he always tries to hide his best attributes from those around him. I feel like there’s more to him than meets the eye, and it’s been my goal to try and get to the point where he knows he has someone he could open up to if he wanted... someone he could rely on. But ever since Obo’s death, Shota has been doing his best to separate himself from us and the rest of the world… It’s as if any bit of happiness he once had had completely disappeared… despite that, my feelings for him haven’t disappeared… though… maybe they should.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I answered Noki, defensively. “Oh, please… don’t be coy. We all know that you’re crazy about Aizawa!!” Tamashiro added. I had never really admitted to them that I’ve had the biggest crush on him, but I guess it was obvious enough that I didn’t have to. “They have a point… Do you think that lonesome, moody boy would agree to go out with you?” Nakamura asked. I thought to myself for a moment, my heart telling me that he would, but my mind telling me there’s no way he would. “He probably wouldn’t…” I answered. “So it’s a good thing I don’t like him,” I lied, hoping that if I lied to myself enough I would eventually get over him. I put my goggles on my head and made my way to the USJ for our hero training.

The class all arrived around the same time, and my eyes immediately went to where Shota was standing, with Hizashi by his side, talking his ear off like normal. Normally I would go over and save Sho, but if I’ve decided to actually get over him and move on, I should keep my distance. I acted like I didn’t notice them come in.*This isn’t so hard… I can get over him* I thought to myself as I didn’t look at him. “Alright, class, settle down,” Ushiwaka-sensei spoke up, causing the chatter among the students to die down. “The past few weeks we have been working hard on combat training, so I thought it would be good to have another rescue exercise. I am splitting the class into two. One half will act as the civilians, and the other half as the heroes. The heroes must work together to rescue all the civilians, who will hide throughout the arena. Though you’ll be ‘rescuing’ your classmates, please act like it’s the real deal,” sensei explained, pulling out a box. “Alright, everyone come pick out which group you’ll be in,” he said, as all the students came forward.

I was assigned to group A along with Hizashi, while I noticed Shota was assigned to group B. “Group B will be heroes first, so group A can go ahead and hide somewhere. Group A, please have an idea for what injury or situation you’ll have to be rescured from… and group B, you’ll have 10 minutes until A is released… I suggest you plan out your strategy in the meantime,” Ushiwaka-sensei instructed. “Group A may go now,” he said. I immediately hopped on my cloud and flew towards the city disaster area. I found a pile of rubble and cleared a spot to lay in before using a cloud to gently hoist a large piece of a broken building across my legs, causing me to look trapped. I laid there for quite some time, until I heard footsteps come around the corner… it was Shota and Yasumori, and they seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. They both stopped as they saw me, and I locked eyes with Shota. He didn’t make a move upon seeing me, but Yasumori quickly ran to my side and Shota continued running in the direction of the landslide zone. My heart sank at the thought of Shota not caring enough to rescue me… then again, I shouldn’t be thinking of him at all… he doesn’t care about me. “Are you alright?? You’re crying… are you hurt??” Yasumori asked, noticing I was crying when I didn’t. “Oh, yeah…” I said, wiping a tear. “I’m just stuck…” I said, looking down at my ‘trapped’ legs. He hoisted the rubble off of me and pulled me out, carrying me bridal-style to the safety zone.

I was the fifth person to be rescued, and upon our arrival, Yasumori put me down gently. “Y’know, I didn’t know you were such a good actor!! The fake tears were a nice touch!” he said, with a grin. I forced a chuckle and said, “thanks,” awkwardly, knowing the tears were real. “Sensei!!! We need someone to help quickly!!!” Noki said as she ran towards the safety zone. “What happened?” he asked her. “Well, Takahashi was in the landslide zone needing to be rescued, and Aizawa came to help him, but while he was lowering Takahashi from the cliffside, he slipped and hit his head, so he’s unconscious. A branch caught hold of his shirt, but none of us can reach him to save him!” she explained. Without thinking I created a cloud and flew in that direction. *What am I doing?? He didn’t seem to care about saving me, so why am I going to save him??* I thought to myself as I flew even faster. *Idiot… because you love him* I answered myself. As I approached the cliff, about 100 feet up I could see Takahashi perfectly wrapped up in Shota’s scarf, which was tied at the top of the cliff, and about 10 feet below him was Shota, who was dangling by a branch that caught his shirt. *By the looks of it, he was trying to carry Takahashi down with him, but because of Takahashi’s slime quirk, he must’ve slipped. Shota then probably used his scarf to get a hold of Takahashi, but didn’t have enough length to tie himself up, causing him to fall and hit his head. Even in a crisis, Sho was skilled enough to save the civilian* I analyzed the situation in my head, and as I did so, I noticed Shota’s shirt ripping... he was getting ready to fall. I quickly swooped underneath where he was in my cloud and managed to catch him just in time. I wasn’t prepared for the force of his fall, and nearly lost my cloud, but I managed to float us gently to the ground and land.

He was still knocked out cold as I held him in my arms. Apart from the large knot on his head, he didn’t seem terribly hurt. I found myself gently rubbing the knot, as if I could somehow make it feel better. I didn’t want him to be hurt. After a moment, sensei and the other students all arrived and saw me holding Shota. “Don’t worry, he’s fine,” I said with a blush, as I placed him down gently and nonchalantly. “I guess I should check on Takahashi,” I said, flying up to the boy dangling in Shota’s scarf. I managed to get him down, and the rest of the exercise continued as if nothing happened. Shota was sent to Recovery Girl, and I was left sitting on the sidelines of the exercise just thinking. *I would’ve rushed that quickly to save anyone, right?? And would’ve felt my heart racing as I looked into his face and massaged his head... oh, who am I kidding?!? You’re in love with him. There’s no way you’ll be able to change that, so you might as well stick with it.*

[ridiasfangirlings]

I'm just imagining the cuteness of Yata going from wanting to kick the ass of this villain in order to prove himself to his hero friends to realizing that this villain is just a hopeless nerd who needs someone to take care of him. So say superhero AU where there are a bunch of people with powers and Niki happens to be one of them, but rather than using his powers for good of course he only uses them to create chaos and mischief. He becomes an infamous supervillain and all kinds of heroes try to defeat him but they all fail, Niki's great at slipping out of any trap that's deployed against him. Eventually though someone gets lucky and manages to defeat the evil villain and Niki dies all alone and unloved in a hospital as the entire world celebrates his death, just the way it should be.

What nobody knows though is that Niki has a kid, a kid who also has superpowers. Fushimi was born after like a one night stand and Kisa didn't want anything to do with the kid once Niki revealed himself to be a supervillain (not because she didn't want to have a kid with a supervillain, mind, she just thought it would be bad for her growing business if everyone found out she hooked up with a guy as infamous as Niki). Niki raised Fushimi all on his own with all the 'loving care' he could manage, meaning Fushimi grew up miserable and unloved and hating everything. Fushimi basically feels like he's destined to be a supervillain and there's nothing he can do about it, he's clearly Niki's son and there's no point in even trying to fight against a fate like that. And besides Fushimi figures this is just as well, since villains destroy everything and this way Fushimi won't ever have to worry about holding things dear or having anything precious, he'll just destroy whatever's in front of him without any remorse.

Of course once Fushimi starts acting as a supervillain plenty of heroes want to stop him, Fushimi probably styles his hair like Niki and tries to pretend that he is Niki and all these heroes think that maybe Niki really didn't die. The superhero team Homra in particular is fairly focused on him which Fushimi dislikes a lot, he doesn't care for Mikoto in particular and tends to make a quick escape whenever Mikoto appears on the scene. Fushimi's trying to think of different ways to get Homra off his back and at some point he realizes that Homra has this civilian kid who's always hanging around them who might be a good target. Yata's a kid who desperately wanted superpowers and never developed them, even so he does his best to support the heroes of Homra and he's always running errands for them and helping them gather information. He never even thinks twice about how this could put him in danger and he probably has particular hate for 'Niki,' who he thinks is just the worst villain of them all.

Fushimi ends up staging some kind of crime as a diversion in order to get Homra out of the way and then he swoops in and kidnaps Yata while they're distracted. Yata's knocked out before he can even fight back and he wakes up in Fushimi's Evil Lair, which turns out to be an incredibly messy cramped apartment. Yata's super confused when he wakes up to find himself tied up on some guy's couch, as he's looking around trying to figure out what's going on the Great Supervillain Niki shows up...or rather, a skinny nerd with messy hair shows up drinking canned coffee and looking like he hasn't slept properly in weeks. Yata's bravado at being kidnapped is significantly dimmed by the discovery that this isn't actually Niki, it's Niki's son, and more than that the fact that Niki's son is, in fact, a hot mess disaster child.

Yata wonders what Fushimi wants with him and is told that he's a hostage for Homra's good behavior, Yata's immediately like you can't do this to me except Fushimi's already ignoring him and typing away on his computer. Yata continues to struggle and yell a lot even as Fushimi keeps snapping at him to be quiet, at some point Yata wonders if he's even going to be fed and Fushimi tosses him a Caloriemate. Yata thinks this is like a bread and water thing until he realizes that Fushimi's eating the same thing along with canned coffee. Eventually Yata probably falls asleep and wakes up to see Fushimi's still at his computer typing even though it's like one in the morning and Yata can't help but be like don't you need to sleep sometime, Fushimi clicks his tongue and tells Yata to shut up. After a few days of Caloriemate and canned drinks Yata manages to convince Fushimi to at least untie him so that Yata can make them food, like look you've caught me and I'm your hostage or whatever so why not force me to do your chores. Fushimi has literally never done chores so this turns into less Fushimi forcing Yata to do them and more Yata cleaning the place and doing laundry and making food because he can't believe that Fushimi even lives like this, like what would your mother say huh (and then Fushimi's like 'she left me so why would she care,' not bitter just matter of fact, and Yata gets suddenly quiet and gives Fushimi this look that makes Fushimi's stomach feel funny for some reason).

At some point the two of them get into like this rhythm and Yata almost forgets that he's a hostage, like Fushimi's stopped being a villain to him and is now just 'Saruhiko,' the sad lonely kid who can't even make his own breakfast. Fushimi's starting to feel maybe slightly guilty for kidnapping Yata but he doesn't want to let Misaki go either, like this is the first person to ever care about him and Fushimi's clinging without even realizing it. One day though Homra finally tracks them down and they arrive in a blaze of heroism to save Yata. Yata wants to just talk it out, like he tells Fushimi that he can explain everything to Homra and they'll let Fushimi go and maybe he can become a hero now but Fushimi can't accept that, thinking Yata cares more for Homra than for him. He 'betrays' Yata by pretending to threaten his life and Yata's heartbroken thinking his whole friendship with Fushimi was a lie but really Fushimi's faking and he lets Yata go, figuring that he'll always be a villain so there's no point in holding on to Yata (and then later Yata realizes that Fushimi did let him go and now he's determined to find Fushimi again and convince him to be the hero Yata knows he can be).

[lesdemonium]

Okay so I know this is not your usual content but your tags about the end of frozen 2? I have been feeling frustrated about the cop out ending since I saw it and I really want the full version of that rant

oh my god anon bless you

Fair warning to anyone about to read this: I’m going spoilers-heavy into Frozen 2, which I feel should be obvious because I’m talking about the ending. It’s also extremely long. I put it under a cut to try to be mindful, but I also know Tumblr is a dumpster fire, so for that I am sorry.

Okay, so when I say that Frozen 2 had a cop-out ending, what I’m referring to is the complete and utter lack of consequences. The entire movie we’re building to Arendelle having growth and facing consequences for the actions of their colonization and attempt to strip the Northuldra of their resources. This build up includes Elsa sacrificing her life to “drown” in the River Ahtohallan in order to see the truth and, more importantly, show Anna the truth. This build up includes Olaf being another sacrifice that Elsa made, that also spurns Anna on to make the hard choice. The hard choice is destroying Arendelle in order to right the wrongs of her grandfather.

Only, none of that happens, and the build up is for nothing. Due to magical Deus Ex Machina (literally defined as “an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel.” which could not be more apt here), Elsa wakes up, jumps on a magical water horse, and saves Arendelle at the last second. Then, for good measure, recreates Olaf and, because “water has memory,” Olaf is exactly the same Olaf he was before, rather than Olaf the third or whatever.

From a storytelling perspective, this is cheap. Elsa and Anna’s sacrifices meant nothing. At the end, everything was tied up with a neat little bow, even though it didn’t make sense narratively-speaking for that to happen. And I do get it, from a capitalistic perspective. Elsa and Olaf carry this movie for the vast majority of their audience (even though, let’s be real, Kristoff stole the show in this one, and who wasn’t a little [a lot] into Anna being the smartest person in the room?). They can’t just “kill off” Elsa and Olaf. When writing this I was even thinking “Oh, but it would be interesting if the third movie was about them trying to save Elsa” but, honestly, that wouldn’t be a very long third movie and these characters are too much of a cash-cow for them to end a movie without them.

But by not destroying Arendelle, despite leading up to that for literally the entire movie (I mean, they evacuated the town in the first, like, 15 min! Come on!), the ending just feels cheap. There are no consequences to any of the actions, which makes it feel like they weren’t even sacrifices. “Oh, but the character’s didn’t know that, Zoe!” Dramatic irony only gets you so far; it shouldn’t be the basis of your entire plot and ruin re-viewing. Elsa’s sacrifice didn’t matter. Something magical swooped in and saved the day at the last second, which means she didn’t actually have to give up anything except a few hours. As a viewer, how am I supposed to trust a movie series after this? It’s the same reason why, after a while, the Marvel movies started feeling cheap and pointless: if no one is ever actually dead, then why should I care when they die? Where is the emotional payoff? They’re just going to come back, and maybe not even act like it happened.

From a child development standpoint, this becomes even worse. Movies are an extremely good way to practice emotions for kiddos. In movies, kids can practice seeing, feeling, and expressing any number of emotions, which if you’ve ever tried to explain emotions to kids, is very difficult (thank you, Inside Out, you revolutionized child therapy). And certain movies are better for this than others. For example, basically anything by Don Bluth is amazing. Movies that deal with heavy concepts such as death, abandonment, loneliness, grief, etc etc etc, but then have a happy ending are amazing for young children to watch and practice those feelings before they have to experience them at all (or to deal with what they already have experienced).

What I particularly like about Don Bluth films? The most devastating moments, they aren’t fixed. Littlefoot’s mom doesn’t come back to life. Charlie’s watch stops saving Anna Marie. But in all of those movies, they find happiness and peace, and it shows kids that even if bad things happen, things will be okay. Okay just has to look different now. That doesn’t mean it stops hurting, but the bad things that happened won’t feel as big for your entire life. Life will continue on and you will find new happiness and love.

Hell, that’s something we, as adults, need to be reminded of every once in a while.

Frozen 2 didn’t do this. Instead of finding a cathartic ending, they just fixed everything. But where, in real life, is a magic woman going to freeze over a flood to stop your city from being destroyed? “But, Zoe, this movie has a talking snowman, no one is looking at it looking for realism.” Five year olds are. For five year olds, fiction and reality do blur. They don’t want to just be like Elsa and Anna, they want to actually be them. This is not to say that kids are stupid--if you know me at all, you know that I think kids are some of the most brilliant confused little beings there are. They do the best with the information and the knowledge of the world they have. They know that talking snowmen aren’t real, but with young enough kids, when you read “The Old Woman Who Swallowed the Fly,” you have to say something like “but not really” after every page so they don’t think she’ll actually die and become distressed part-way through the book. Literally. We read a Thanksgiving-version of this to preschoolers once and the teacher said “But not really” every time, so that the kids didn’t go home afraid of their Thanksgiving dinner because of a book they read at school.

It’s because of this difficulty with parsing fiction from reality that makes movies and other media so important for practicing emotions. For that hour and a half that they’re watching the movie, it is real, and parts of it will carry on into their everyday life (and I don’t just mean singing “Let It Go” for five hours straight, I mean little girls seeing a black woman in a wedding gown and thinking she’s literally the princess from one of their favorite books, and paying kindness forward with their joy).

So with that in mind, wouldn’t it have been more beneficial to show Arendelle being destroyed? And showing the fallout with that? And how this is really sad, and we’re all really scared, but thank goodness we have each other and everyone was already out of the city. Thank goodness we are able to rebuild and take this opportunity to right our past wrongs, bring back the people we lost, and replace all the material items that were destroyed, because we have the people that matter most to us. Things will always be different, but, to quote Olaf, “We’re calling this controlling what you can when things feel out of control.” Let’s focus on what we can control, so we feel less hopeless. That line made me think that Disney was actually going to go through with this. But instead, because everything was fixed in some unrealistic way, Olaf’s words feel just as cheap as Elsa’s “death.” There was no follow-through, there was no hope for the children who have survived a flood, who will survive a flood, or any other sort of disaster. I mean, hell, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. As a child educator, I would have loved to be able to point at Frozen 2 and go “You know how Arendelle was destroyed and everyone was really sad and scared for the future? But it was okay, because they still had the people they loved around them? That’s what this quarantine is like. Things are going to be different, and that’s really scary, but we will be okay, just like Anna and Elsa and Olaf are.”

And, honestly, I didn’t hate the movie. I did hate Frozen 1, but I think this movie did have a lot of strengths. But the ending was not, at all, one of them. They were building up to a really cathartic ending, and instead they cheated their viewers. Not to get too nebulous, because this is a related but technically different discussion, but helicopter parents are detrimental to kids for the same reason. If we spend all of our time trying to condescend to children that everything is wonderful and perfect all the time, nothing bad happens, and negative emotions are bad, then we are creating is kids that do not trust us (because they know better) and are ill-prepared for when bad things do happen in their lives.

[violetsmoak]

Tabula Rasa [7/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183281/chapters/49466486

Blanket Disclaimer:

Summary: Tim and Jason have known they are soulmates for years, though neither has said anything about it. Tim thinks Jason doesn’t know and is just trying to live with it. Jason thinks Tim knows but doesn’t care, which is fine with him, he thinks the soulmate thing is a crock anyway. But one night, a minor mishap forces them to confront the issue head-on, leading to a series of events no one could have predicted.

Rating: PG-13 (Rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #soulmate aversion #secret identity 

First Chapter

Author’s Note(s): In which as time passes, Jay's not having an easy time coping with all this soulmate stuff, and Tim's still trying to figure everything out. And Alfred is his usual awesome self.

________________________________________________________________

“Forget almost being assassinated, how did he not die just from tripping over something in the dark, or eating expired food?” Jason asks as he looks around the disaster zone that is Tim Drake’s apartment. There are takeout containers and empty coffee cups covering every surface, and clothing soiled with dirt and blood and what looks like sewer sludge strewn across the floor. Packaging and bubble wrap twist around the legs of tables and extension cables create startlingly effective tripwire traps. “Can’t you people afford a maid service?”

“Surely even you aren’t so thick that you don’t understand why that would be a bad idea,” Damian points out as he walks in behind him, carrying several large boxes from the local hardware depot. As he deposits them, he surveys the apartment with something more like horror than disgust. “This is the residence of the man my grandfather considers his equal?”

“He’s not usually this bad,” Dick says with a sigh as he closes the door behind him with one hand and deposits his own burden of packages. His eyes rove across the open concept living area with a worried expression. “I was here like three weeks ago and it was spotless. I mean, his room was a disaster zone, but that’s just Tim. Messy genius, you know?”

“If this is how he lives, perhaps the social workers are correct that he needs a more qualified minder.”

Dick ignores that. “I don’t get it. It’s like he just gave up. What the hell happened?”

Jason remains quiet; he has a nasty suspicion he knows exactly what made Tim stop caring.

Whatever, I’m making up for it now, aren’t I? In fucking spades…

He’s been avoiding Tim’s apartment for weeks now, stubbornly squatting in different buildings every night or shelling out for a motel when he wants an actual bed or shower. But the last few days he found several itching bites on his skin, and hell no. He swore when Bruce took him in, he was done with bedbugs and lice and any other critter that can be found in questionably cleaned bedding.

As luck would have it, Dick was on his way over here with Damian to install handicap bars in Tim’s bathroom and check the place over for any other chores or tasks that needed doing.

“I still don’t see the point of that,” Jason says, nodding at the boxes of tools and components. “In what universe do you see B letting Tim leave the manor any time in the next year or so? Even when he gets his memories back.”

“It’s a compliance thing,” Dick informs him. “Now that Tim’s making actual strides in recovery, social services will be coming at some point to check that everything is set up for his rehabilitation if he chooses to come here. If it’s not done, it won’t look good.”

“That chick’s still pushing this?”

“Oh yeah. She keeps coming up with new requirements she insists be filled. Independent psych evaluations, bi-monthly physicals performed by state doctors—she even wants him to attend mandatory rehabilitation at some government facility in Blüdhaven.”

“What? Why there?”

“Aside from the fact Gotham’s mental health infrastructure is riddled with the criminally insane?”

“Fair…”

“Babs looked into her and it looks like Bruce had the right idea. Gillian Sato’s a nobody. Completely average in everything, trying to make a name in her department by going after a big fish. And you know that Bruce has been CPS’ great white whale since he took me in. You too.”

“I remember,” Jason says with a scowl.

It was shortly after he was taken in by Bruce. He had just started as Robin, was beginning to see Bruce and Alfred as family and the manor as home. And then some do-gooder social worker with the ‘best intentions’ and a dislike of Brucie Wayne exploited a technicality that let her remove Jason from the Wayne household. The next weeks and months dragged Jason through such an emotional wringer that his already abundant trust issues increased by orders of magnitude. Even before he and Bruce started to butt heads later, Jason would never truly be at ease in the manor ever again.

Or anywhere, really.

People let you down. People left. People could be taken away from you. These were the facts of life, and Jason vowed never to forget them again.

It’s yet another reason he’s so resistant to the idea of soulmates. Having one just makes it easier to be let down or to have them taken away. Hell, he’s seen that firsthand, hasn’t he? A simple errant bullet and he almost had to watch his die. He can’t even imagine what this whole ordeal would feel like if he was close to Tim.

Lost in his thoughts, it takes him a moment to realize Dick is still talking.

“…her higher-ups barely know anything about her. Most of them are willing to let this thing with Tim go, but she’s the one who keeps pushing it. Poking for loopholes whenever she hits a new roadblock.”

“So have Barbie make her go away,” Jason suggests.

“And give support to the idea Bruce Wayne is above the law because of his money?” Dick challenges. “That would put a lot more attention on the issue than anyone wants. For now, we just play it the legal way. Once Tim’s eighteen, she’ll have lost a major avenue to exploit.”

“Which means you guys have to put up with her trying to wrap you in red tape for the next four months at least.”

“This is ridiculous,” Damian mutters.

“I know.”

“Not that—although yes, this farce of legal compliance is a waste of everyone’s time. But I’m talking about how no one has done anything about Drake’s condition other than wring their hands.”

“Excuse me?!”

“If we’re ever going to go on with our lives, he must be fixed, and faster than some useless stretching is going to do.”

“Kid, how exactly do you think your dad got back to fighting condition after Bane broke his back?” Jason questions. “‘Useless stretching’ was a big part of it.”

“And a hell of a lot of drive,” Dick adds. “Which Tim doesn’t really have enough of right now. I mean, I know he wants to get better, but it’s not the same as if he knew who he was.”

“Exactly. He would already be walking, I’m sure,” Damian nods. “Then you’re in agreement with me.”

“Well, yeah—wait. What am I agreeing with?” Dick asks, suspicious.

“Through my observations of the situation, I have determined that Drake is unlikely to ever regain full functionality or his memory. The easiest way to fix this would be a Lazarus Pit. I happen to know of one in Cuba.”

“Holy no Batman!” Dick cries. “Did you forget what happened when I tried doing that for Bruce?”

“It would be different in this case, since we know for sure that it’s Drake and not a decoy,” Damian argues. “At least, the body bit. And Todd recovered from brain damage thanks to the Pit.” He considers Jason. “Well. More or less. I did not know you before, therefore I have no basis of comparison.”

“And you also missed the murderous rampage that happened afterward,” Jason growls. “Not being able to control yourself sucks. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

Even Tim.

Especially not Tim.

“If anyone possesses the ability to fight off the effects of the Lazarus Pit, it’s Drake,” Damian insists. “He does not have the same latent anger or violent tendencies as Todd’s files say he had.”

“Hey, stay the hell out of my business!”

“Tim might not be as violent as Jason is or was—”

“Screw you, Dickhead.”

“—but he definitely has the capacity for anger. And as it is, he suffers from severe depression,” Dick informs them soberly. “To the point where he’s considered suicide at least once in the past.”

Damian and Jason’s eyes snap to his face.

“What?” Jason demands.

“That was not in his file.”

“Because he didn’t want it there,” Dick tells them, weary. “In case someone tried to use it against him.”

“Don’t you think that’s kind of fucking important to people know about?” Jason demands. “Especially if they have to go out in the field with him?”

He’s having a sudden flashback to the night when everything came out into the open, when he swooped in to save Tim from a fall that he should have been able to divert himself.

Shit. What if that wasn’t an accident like I thought?

“We all have things in our history we don’t want in the files,” Dick reminds them, his face becoming hard for a moment as if he’s remembering something. Then he shakes it off. “Tim’s been dealing with it. He’s on medication, he reaches out when it gets bad…but it’s an ongoing process. I don’t need to tell you guys that.”

“If he didn’t want anyone knowing, he’s going to be pissed you tattled.”

“I’m only speaking up so Damian understands what a bad idea it would be to put Tim in a Lazarus Pit. Depression on top of Pit madness? I don’t want to even think about what he might do.”

Not to mention bringing him anywhere near where Ra’s might pop up is asking for trouble, especially since he can’t fight him off right now.

“So, you are insisting on this waiting nonsense,” Damian concludes, looking frustrated.

“It’s all we can do for now, Little D.”

The kid’s expression remains stormy.

⁂

Damian strides into Tim’s bedroom one morning, wearing a determined expression and followed by his gigantic dog, Titus.

Tim feels a little wary, not so much because of the intimidating canine, but because his younger brother rarely comes near him voluntarily.

“I have read in numerous medical journals the benefits of animal companions in increasing the likelihood of recovery from traumatic brain injuries,” he announces. “Since Father is adamant, we are not getting another dog, I have decided to allow you to spend time with Titus while I am engaged in my studies. I am confident it will contribute to improvement in your condition.” He gestures at the dog. “Titus, stay with Drake. I shall collect you later.”

Then he nods to himself, as if concluding business, and leaves the room.

Tim stares after him, utterly bewildered at the turn of events. Titus watches the boy go, whines for a moment, and then looks over his shoulder at Tim, head cocked to one side as if wondering what that was all about.

All he can do is shrug, which he feels ridiculous about a moment later because Titus is a dog and has a limited understanding (even if Damian speaks to him as if he’s a human being). Still, a beat later, the dog wanders over to Tim’s bed, and rests his head upon the mattress, gazing up at Tim with curious eyes, his tail wagging somewhat.

Slowly, Tim reaches out with his right hand and places it on the dog’s head, causing the tail-wagging to speed up, and scratches him behind the ears.

Titus thus becomes a semi-permanent element of Tim’s recovery process. Damian comes by every morning to drop the dog off as if he’s a parent leaving a child at daycare or school and leaves for several hours. Titus then goes to Tim for obligatory head-pats and only lets up when it becomes clear Tim’s energy is flagging. Even then, he doesn’t go anywhere, simply curling up beside Tim’s bed. When Damian returns, he pokes his head in, nods again, and gestures for the dog to depart with him.

The whole situation is bizarre, but Tim thinks it’s the way Damian expresses worry.

Having Titus around has the added benefit of intimidating Gillian Sato whenever she comes for one of her ‘visits’. Jay can’t always make it there before she does, and she somehow manages to insist on meeting with Tim privately to avoid bias (which he doesn’t understand). Those visits when Jay isn’t present are as short as possible to comply with her wishes, but they’re long enough that Tim is always exhausted and confused at their end. With Titus there, he’s at least a bit more comfortable; the dog appears to sense when his anxiety is climbing or when Ms. Sato says something that makes him uncomfortable.

“It’s rather concerning, Timothy,” she tells him in a voice meant to be kind. “Considering all the resources Mr. Wayne has at his disposal, that he insists you recover here. Instead of in a facility specifically created to rehabilitate TBI patients. It’s almost as if he’s trying to keep you here under his watchful eye.” She leans forward, expression worrying. “You want to get better as soon as possible, don’t you?”

Before Tim can try to parse out exactly what she’s asking him (because he knows somehow the words don’t match her intention), Titus hackles raise, and he begins to growl.

Almost that same instant, Alfred will sweep in and declare that Tim is quite tired today, perhaps they can continue this interview some other time?

Tim wonders if he isn’t standing at the door eavesdropping, even though somehow, he can’t reconcile that image in his head.

Depending on the time of day that Ms. Sato arranges her ‘visit’, the family member that sits with him changes. He much prefers when it’s Jay—he’s the only one whose presence helps Tim calm down quickly after such an interview—but he’s learning to appreciate and trust everyone else in his family.

He’s come a long way since waking up in the hospital and seeing nothing but a bunch of strangers.

Bruce continues to make efforts to spend time with Tim when he wakes up in the mornings. In addition to the sudoku and crossword puzzles, which Tim has started trying to do himself in his spare time, Bruce has started playing other games with him. First Go Fish, and later Memory.

They were games suggested by Dr. Thrussell to help with Tim’s mental rehabilitation, but it turns out playing with Bruce is fun. His expression is awfully serious for what Tim knows are simple children’s games, but he always becomes exceedingly pleased when Tim makes a correct guess.

Dick, who Tim has learned from Alfred is a police officer, is not always around due to his work shifts being somewhat irregular, but when he is, he goes out of his way to help Tim with whatever he might need. It’s both touching and overwhelming; Tim likes Dick, but he feels the same amount of mental exhaustion when he leaves as he does when Ms. Sato does.

How does one person have that much energy?

His favorites besides Jay, are Cassandra and Stephanie.

Steph is nice, as well. She’s affectionate with him, has a good sense of humor, and unlike everyone else who seems wary about touching Tim beyond helping him groom himself or for physio, she’s very tactile.

And she smells nice.

He feels a level of comfort with her that is like when he’s with Jay, which he supposes is because they used to date before she and Cass discovered they were soulmates. Perhaps it’s why he doesn’t question her presence in his life the way he still does sometimes with Bruce or Dick or Damian.

And then there’s Cassandra, who’s just…amazing.

Because she’s like him, somehow.

There’s intelligence in her eyes, but she has trouble getting the words out just like he does. When she sees him struggling with his brain to mouth disconnect, she looks empathetic and he knows it’s not pity or guilt.

The latter is a look he’s started to recognize in Jay, and he doesn’t like it.

He wonders if whatever makes him look like that is the reason he doesn’t get along with the rest of the family. He wishes he could ask, though he suspects even if he could, he wouldn’t get a straight answer.

He’s not sure if that’s normal for this family, or if it’s just another attempt to keep from upsetting Tim. Ever since he started to improve, everyone seems to be wanting to keep him occupied and entertained. Sometimes it’s fun—like today, with Steph egging him on while playing Candy Crush—and other times, it’s just…

Exhausting.

His convalescence aside, Tim has noticed there are times when he feels exhausted and strained for reasons other than his injury. He doesn’t know where those feelings come from, just that he dislikes them.

⁂

One evening, a little over three months following the shooting, Jason shuffles into the manor and wonders how this became routine for him.

It should worry him; how easy it’s been to slip back into the habit of being greeted by Alfred. Into toeing off his boots in the entrance closest and loitering in the kitchen to see if there’s anything left over from lunch or dinner.

It’s deceptively simple to fall into the mental trap of calling this place home again, which is why he never lets himself stay longer than a few hours. Even when Alfred keeps offering to make up a guest room or tries to tempt him with homemade scones for breakfast the next morning.

(He can’t go near his old room, the mausoleum to shattered dreams and stolen childhood.)

Jason’s usual arguments against that are quieter right now, his mind on what Damian said the other day: that no one is trying to help Tim.

In the strictest sense, the sentiment is bullshit; everyone in the Family has been bending over backward trying to make his rehabilitation priority, to protect him from two-faced social workers and asshole paparazzi looking for a story. But there’s been no headway on the shooting, and he wonders if anyone else but him is still looking into it.

Which is stupid, because he knows for a fact that Bruce is a dog with a bone and won’t let any case go, let alone one where his kid got hurt.

So why hasn’t he found anything yet?

He knows from experience, both as Robin and Red Hood, that some cases take longer than others. Bruce spent an entire year investigating the Holiday killings before Jason got involved, and during their years together there were several ongoing cases that dragged for weeks and months before a break could be made.

There are some that remain unsolved to this day.

But this is Tim, you’d think he’d be more motivated. Unless…

Unless he has found something and just doesn’t want to share it because he thinks Jason’s going to go on a vengeful, murderous rampage.

He clenches his fists.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Bruce kept something from him or anyone else if he’s on a case he’s decided is his. He even keeps Dick out of the loop on stuff like that, and he’s the golden child.

Jason’s probably just being paranoid.

Except…

Except he learned paranoia from the best, and that paranoia isn’t always just paranoia, and if Bruce thinks he’ll react badly to something, of course he’s going to keep it from him. Which means they’re going to have a problem because this case isn’t going to get solved if they can’t share important information.

Instead of heading toward Tim’s bedroom, Jason changes course and makes a beeline for the Cave entrance in the study.

He reaches the bottom of the staircase just in time to see Nightwing and Robin peel out of the garage on two bikes. A cowl-free Batman is hunched over the computer, looking up something on the main screen, while the ones off to the sideshow various CCTV feeds from the Narrows, Tricorner and Burnley.

He catches flashes of Black Bat and Signal in the latter two, and scowls.

“I should be out there.”

“That’s not your concern right now,” Bruce replies without even turning around. “You should be upstairs with Tim.”

There’s a derisive snort at that, and Jason glances over to see Blondie balanced on her own bike, adjusting her hair beneath her cowl.

“Problem, Bat-chick?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t sound like nothin’.”

“Just seems like certain people are easier to forgive than others.”

“Stephanie,” Bruce warns, still not looking at either of them.

“No, it’s fine,” she replies. “Let’s keep tiptoeing around the giant pink elephant in the room. And by giant pink elephant, I mean crime lord.”

“That what you’re goin’ with?” Jason challenges. “You’ve been stewin’ on that for three months, and you’re gonna give me grief over bullshit that’s over and done with?”

“Clearly it’s not over and done with.”

“If you’ve got a problem with me, strap on the steel tits and own up to what it’s really about.”

“Okay, fine!” Blondie hops off the bike to march forward, stopping a good foot away from him and shoving a finger at him. “You might be his soulmate, but don’t think that gets you off for all the crap you’ve pulled. Especially since you’ve known this whole time.”

“What I know or knew is none of your business. But if you really want to have a competition about who hurt him most, my name ain’t the only one on the list.”

“Are you seriously trying to pull the ‘everyone else did it too so it’s okay’ defense?”

“No, I’m telling you to be careful in that fragile fucking glass house of yours.”

“Speaking of houses, how long are you going to keep playing house with Tim before you break his heart again? Are you going to do it right when he gets his memories back, or wait a few days for him to adjust and then drop him?”

“You think I’d be that big an asshole?”

“I know you’re that big an asshole. And so did Tim,” she shoots back, merciless. “He told me you were dead.”

“I was dead.”

“And then you weren’t. And he still always told that to anyone who asked. He knew whatever this is with you, it was never going to happen, but it also wasn’t going away. So, he was trying to move on. And if he’s smart—which we all know Tim is, memories or not—he’ll stick to that gut feeling. Because the longer he’s involved with you, the more hurt he’s going to be when you inevitably break his heart. If you were any kind of decent, you’d get the hell out of his life before he finishes imprinting on you like a baby chick.”

“That’s enough,” Bruce says, and this time he does turn around. “Stephanie, patrol.”

“I’m going,” she replies. “But not because you told me to.”

She stalks toward her bike, and after a few angry revs of the engine, speeds off out of the cave.

Bruce is still looking in Jason’s direction; he can feel the frown. “Provoking her isn’t helpful to anyone, least of all Tim.”

“What argument were you watching?” Jason shoots back. “If anyone’s provoking anyone else, it’s her. And I’m telling you now, B, if she wants a fight, I’ll give it to her. I’m putting up with enough crap because of this soulmate thing, I didn’t sign on to let Timbo’s pissed off ex-girlfriend take shots at me.”

“The lack of evidence in this case is frustrating everyone.”

Jason gives him a disbelieving look—there’s no way that Bruce can be so emotionally stunted that he can’t figure out what Blondie’s little tiff was all about.

Then again…yes, he is.

Rather than stew over Blondie’s accusations (and the fact that she’s got more of a point than he’d like), Jason decides to focus on what Bruce actually said.

“So you haven’t found anything on your end, either?”

He leans against the giant computer, keeping a conspicuous distance between him and Bruce, and trying not to feel awkward and naked without his helmet on. He doesn’t actually remember the last time he was down here and not in uniform.

“No.”

“Really. Nothing? Not a single goddamn clue? This is all just some random person that decided to take the kid out?”

“It’s not the first time someone has attempted to assassinate Tim.”

“Yeah, but I heard about that, it was all planned for. This wasn’t.”

“Hence the continued investigation.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no way you’ve been on the case this long and haven’t found something.”

Bruce is quiet for a moment and then nods. “Based on the lack of available evidence, whoever did this was a professional. Elite even.”

“No shit. We knew that from Day One.”

“I’ve since narrowed down a list of suspects from around the world, who have the capability of pulling this off.”

“And?”

“And they’re all either accounted for or dead.”

“So why do you look more constipated about this than usual? You’ve had harder cases with less evidence.”

“Almost all of these snipers were trained by David Cain.”

The name makes Jason tense. “He’s dead.”

“Yes. But before he died, he mentioned something to me. That there were others.”

“Others like Cass, you mean.”

“Hn.”

Jason grits his teeth. “So, your theory is some designer assassin Child o’ Cain decided to come to Gotham just to shoot Tim?”

“It’s not a theory. Just a possible connection. There’s too little evidence to support it.”

“Then what the hell are you spending the time on it for?” Jason demands. “If we’re going for wild conspiracy theories, why not an alternate universe or time travel? It’s just as easy to speculate someone came back in time to assassinate Tim or put him out of commission for whatever reason.”

“I won’t discount those theories either,” Bruce allows, because of course. “But in either situation, anyone coming here for Tim specifically would likely be enhanced to survive whatever means brought them here.”

“Or it’s one of us.”

Bruce doesn’t meet his gaze, but there’s a subtle tensing of his shoulder muscles.

“I saw that,” Jason points out quietly. Bruce says nothing. “You think it would be me, don’t you?”

“I never said that.”

“If it were one of us, I’m the best marksman, so if it were anyone of ours to come back and put a bullet in his head, it’d be me.”

Bruce stands then, agitated. “You’re jumping to conclusions and letting your feelings cloud your judgment. This is only one of many theories, not even the one that’s most likely—”

“Except we both know that ain’t the case!” Jason snarls. “You know as well as I do, I’m probably the reason he got shot in the first place!”

“Jason—”

“I did this, B! I was in the middle of a pissing contest with some asshole moving in on my turf and Tim got caught in the crossfire. I might as well have pulled the trigger myself!”

“You did not cause Tim to be shot,” Bruce snaps.

“That’s not what you thought when it happened,” Jason reminds him bitterly.

“And I’ve since revised my opinion. I don’t believe this to be related to the contract that was put out on Red Hood.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a totally glowing recommendation!”

“Whoever is after you obviously isn’t aware of your civilian identity, or they would still be pursuing you,” Bruce replies. “Going underground would only keep you safe for so long, and it’s been months. Whoever is targeting you may have been watching Red Hood, but they weren’t watching you. Therefore, the likelihood of Tim’s shooting having anything to do with your activities is low.”

“Seriously? That’s your explanation?”

“Jason,” Bruce sighs, and he’s pinching the bridge of his nose in a familiar gesture of exhaustion. “I’m trying to tell you I don’t think you’re responsible for this. Why are you fighting me on it?”

“Because nothing is ever that easy with you! And you’re usually the one driving the ‘Jason messes everything up’ bandwagon. Don’t tell me that’s changed all because I happen to be the kid’s soulmate.”

“That has nothing to do with it. I’ve already explained my reasoning, and it’s enough for me at the moment.” He fixes Jason with a calculating look that he doesn’t like. “The question is, why are you so determined to make it your fault?”

Jason opens his mouth to respond, but the words get stuck in his throat as he realizes he has no idea how to answer that.

Bruce continues. “Your behavior is inconsistent.”

“Hell, yes, it’s inconsistent! It’s been months and I still have no fucking idea how I’m supposed to deal with all of this!”

“Perhaps you should take some time,” the older man replies, turning his attention back to the computer. “Away from here.”

Jason narrows his eyes. “Away from Tim, you mean.”

“He’s at the point where he is no longer uncomfortable with the rest of us, and you did make it clear that you only intended to stay by his side until his condition improved. I’m sure with some explanation you could take some time. It might help.”

“You just…that’s not even…”

Jason falters, not sure how to respond, because really, this is his get-out-of-jail-free card. He did say he was only going to stick around until Tim was doing better, and the kid is doing better. He can get back to his search for the dick that got him to go to ground, can get back to living his life the way he wants it and not based around a convalescent’s schedule.

But the idea of it just now, makes him feel queasy, like he’s running a dirty deal.

And on top of that, it bothers him that while Bruce is certain he’s not responsible for Tim’s injury, he still obviously has an issue with the fact they’re soulmates.

It shouldn’t bother him.

It absolutely should not bother him.

And yet.

“You’re a fucking piece of work, you know that?” he snaps, and heads right back up the stairs, mind racing and unable to settle on a single conflicted thought.

Upon reaching the study he finds Alfred on his way in, a tray of tea and sandwiches in hand. The older man takes one look at him and purses his lips, and puts down his burden.

“From your expression, I suspect Master Bruce will be sulking too much the rest of the evening to be interested in dinner.”

“Like I care,” Jason grunts, slamming the false front of the clock entrance closed.

“Were that the case, you would not be damaging the furniture.”

Jason scowls, though it’s somewhat tempered when Alfred offers him the sandwiches he was obviously about to bring down to Bruce.

He takes a petty satisfaction in polishing off every bit of food and tea while Alfred pretends to busy himself with tidying the already pristine study. Although he’s clearly remaining nearby should Jason need him, he doesn’t try to force a conversation.

How does he always know…?

Jason surprises himself when he’s the one to break the silence. “Why the hell does this soulmate shit have to be so complicated? Everyone else just gets it, and I just want to jump out of my fucking skin because it’s making me crazy.”

For once, Alfred doesn’t comment on his language.

“As I understand it, you have never had another person with whom you could confide about this before. You had not manifested your mark when you first came to us, and Master Bruce does tend to avoid matters of the heart and soul except when necessity requires it.”

Jason grumbles, “No kidding.”

It’s not just now, either.

Years back, Bruce got through the sex talk with his usual emotionless, detached aplomb, but didn’t bother with any of the other stuff. Jason would have thought the guy had no heart at all, except he saw how invested he got with the women in his life that mattered.

“And I would imagine discussing it with Mr. Harper and Ms. Anders has not helped, given the substantial difference in circumstances.”

“You got that right…”

“Then perhaps I might offer my own understandings if only to provide another perspective.”

Jason shrugs. “Why not? It’s not like anyone else cares, other than to look like I kicked a puppy whenever I’m in the room with Tim.”

“It has always been my belief that one’s soulmate is the person who will have the most impact on one’s life.”

“So why isn’t mine the Joker?” Jason shoots back spitefully.

“As if that creature ever had a soul,” Alfred scoffs.

“I’m just sayin’, your logic’s flawed.”

“And if you think a homicidal clown gets to claim to be the biggest impact on your life, I wash my hands of you. Do you realize you are scarcely 21 years old? You have an awful lot of life ahead of you to have that one moment, traumatic as it was, to define all of it. Perhaps in those first few months or years following the incident, yes. But you have a future, Master Jason. Soulmates are not just for the moment, but for the breadth of your lifespan. And however much strangeness we see on a regular basis in this world of ours, none of us have the ability to discern the future.”

“Except maybe Duke.”

“Except perhaps Master Duke,” Alfred allows, his mouth twitching somewhat. “But even that only comes in flashes. He cannot know it all. And neither can you.”

“Is that your convoluted way of telling me ‘chin up’?”

“That is my convoluted way of telling you that you are not the only person to find the matter of soulmates difficult to navigate. And no one—not even Master Bruce—is expecting you to figure it all out right away.”

Jason snorts. “You sure about that?”

Alfred simply raises an eyebrow as if insulted by his pearls of wisdom being questioned, and Jason raises his hands in surrender.

Never question Alfred. He knows everything.

Still, he suspects that Bruce will be getting a rather pointed talking-to in the near future. It makes him feel marginally better about the whole thing.

“Now,” the older man continues in a businesslike tone, “Timothy is in the family room this afternoon. However, I would understand if you do not feel up to seeing him today and would be perfectly willing to make an excuse for your absence should you require it.”

Jason almost accepts the out, but then remembers Bruce making a similar suggestion—albeit with more suspect motives—and shakes his head.

“Nah,” he sighs. “Knowing Timbers, he’s been waiting up all day. Least I can do is say 'hi'.”

“Indeed,” Alfred agrees neutrally, but there’s a twinkle in his eye that suggests approval.

As long as no one else decides to ambush me with their emotional crap today, it should be fine, Jason decides, leaving the study and wandering down the hall.

⁂

Tim is sitting in the family room watching Arranged.

He spends most of his time there, either alone or with whatever member of the family is still at home that day. After so long being practically bedridden, he’s desperate to be anywhere that’s not his bedroom.

Alfred wheels him out into the gardens whenever it’s not raining or damp or windy (which, being May, it almost always is), and he’s since enjoyed the sun on his face for the first time that he can remember. He also got to experience his apparent first sunburn, because it seems his skin is notoriously sensitive.

Worth it though, to be outside.

He shifts, sitting up on the couch in front of the large television. He’s surrounded by a staggering number of blankets and pillows; Tim’s not even sure he really needs them to support him anymore—he’s been sitting up on his own for a while—but Alfred insists it’s better safe than sorry.

Titus is lying on his feet, dozing but alert. Tim’s wheelchair stands beside the couch, with Alfred the Cat (Damian seems to not have much imagination when it comes to pet names) curled up on the seat. Occasionally he opens one eye as if to check on Tim, and then returns to sleep.

He’s not a bad recovery-cat, I guess.

On-screen, Cordelia de Vere and Bertram Montmorency get to know one another and discover they actually get along, being of complementary temperaments. They have undeniable chemistry and their dialog is full of witty diatribe and veiled insults that he can’t help enjoying. It’s much more interesting than what Cordelia had with her soulmate, which he agrees with Jay about. Tim’s not sure if it’s a better match than Bertram and Maurice, who the prince continues to see in secret. Meanwhile, Gerald seems to be getting along just fine, joining the army and vowing to build himself up to meet the standards of Cordelia’s parents. He doesn’t actually seem outwardly bothered by her absence, except for several sequences of him writing her love letters.

“Never mind a bullet, this is the kind of crap that gives you brain damage,” a voice informs Tim, amused and somewhat mocking as usual.

Tim’s eyes snap instantly to Jay as he appears in the room, and he feels a smile break out on his face.

“Hi.”

It’s one of the words he’s been working on in therapy and can finally say it without having to mentally or actually hum through a children’s nursery rhyme song. It gives him a thrill of accomplishment, albeit one that pales at the thrill when Jason’s eyes widen in surprise, and then something that Tim imagines might be pride.

“Hi back,” he replies and glances around the room. The car glares up at him like he expects him to question or end his occupation of the space, but Jason simply throws himself down on the nearby easy chair—it’s the only piece of furniture free of pillows and blankets—and squints at the television. “I can’t believe you’re still watching this.”

Tim snorts and shoots Jason a wry look, mentally telegraphing his thoughts. And what are you doing right now?

“Don’t give me that, I’m humoring the invalid.”

“Uh-huh,” Tim grunts.

“That’s a lot of sarcasm for someone who can’t manage actual words yet.”

Tim doesn’t take Jason’s abrasive comments as an insult. Along with Steph, he is the only one that doesn’t try to coddle him. He talks to Tim the same way he talks to everyone else, which, like he’s equal to them even though his brain is making things hard for him right now.

Still, the reminder of his lack of verbosity directly on the heels of his recent accomplishments strikes something in Tim, something like annoyance. Something that suddenly wants to prove a point.

He frowns in effort, trying to line up thoughts and words and the movement of his mouth.

“This is seriously predictable,” Jason complains. “Obviously the writers are trying to set it up that he shows up again and sweeps her off her feet. Then the rich boy goes back to his boyfriend and watching all this is a total waste of time.” Tim doesn’t respond, and Jason glances over at him to gauge his reaction. Only to notice now that Tim is watching him instead of the show, mouth turned downward in a frown. “What?”

Tim’s lips part, then purse, and he makes a kind of humming noise in his throat, closing his eyes in concentration. He takes a deep breath and then utters a sound.

“Ju…jjuh…juh-ay…”

He blinks, somewhat surprised by himself. Jason seems to echo it. “Did you just…?”

Tim’s mouth quirks upward and he feels almost smug. Then, he slowly sounds out the word again. “Ja-ay.”

It’s slow and stilted, and his voice is raspy from disuse, but it’s there, decrying his enforced muteness.

Jay is sitting up ramrod straight now. “Holy shit, you’re trying to talk.”

The naked awe on his soulmate’s face makes him feel warm, and so Tim plods onward, ignoring the way sweat breaks out on the back of his neck or the way he feels a little dizzy.

“Th…than…kyuu…”

Jay’s expression appears to shutter, awe becoming confusion. “Uh…for what?”

“Sa…say…” Tim is panting a bit from the effort now.

“Hey, forget it, don’t push yourself,” Jason implores him, sitting up and making a pacifying gesture. “Three words is enough progress for—”

“Say-ved,” Tim interrupts doggedly. “Safe. Me. Heard…duh…di…Dick…say. You. Say-ved me.”

There.

That was almost two full sentences. He knows they’re crude and basic and maybe not quite what he was trying to say, but he managed to communicate on his own without blinking. It fills him with a buoyant glee, a bubbling temptation to laugh though he knows from experience that doing that would just make his head spin and throb.

He expects Jay to look proud again, happy or relieved—maybe even a sarcastic, teasing quip.

What he doesn’t expect is the wild gleam in Jay’s eye or the way the blood rushes from his cheeks. He looks like someone punched him, and then he’s standing, backing away.

“That…” He swallows. “I’ve got to…”

He doesn’t finish and instead turns and practically bolts from the room, leaving Tim staring after him in shocked dismay, wondering what just happened.

________________________________________________________________

To Be Continued

Poor Timmy. And just when he's starting to show some of his old spunk, too...

Things are heading for their first boiling point. Someone's got to knock some sense into Jay, either literally or metaphorically (who wants to take bets on who it will be?). 

[schmergo]

So, I had this wild dream the other day and my boyfriend said I should write it down, so here goes. I’m cutting out a bunch of weird non sequiturs and subplots that make no sense- you know how dreams are- but this is what I remember.

I was watching a movie called Lightbringers about these people who are basically a Pantheon. Their job is to balance the light and dark in the world. So they might swoop in and rescue someone’s life or avert a catastrophe if there’s already bad stuff going on, but they can also cause natural disasters or accidents. There’s nothing personal about how good or bad you are in life, it’s all about creating a worldwide balance that indicates whether or not they’ll interfere in an event.

There are about ten of them and their positions have been around since the dawn of time, but the actual individuals have rotated in and out over the centuries. They each control different areas like family and relationships, war and peace, health and environment, etc. The Lightbringers were all mortal humans once but were recruited after near-death experiences to join the “team,” at which point they stop aging. Most serve for 100-200 years before choosing to return to earth and live out a natural life, though some stay for longer.

The exception is the leader/founder, who is alternately called Lucifer, Anubis, and Hades. He’s in charge of death, but he’s not a bad guy. He’s just kinda the grim reaper. He may bring light by saving someone miraculously or by letting someone mercifully die who was suffering, but he may also put out light by standing by and letting a painful death happen or causing one. He basically looked like Heimdall from Thor but with younger, softer features. All of the members wear voluminous black robes and have long hair that they’re forbidden to cut.

The newest member of the team had recently been recruited from our modern day. She resembled a less glamorous Ariana Grande and sue controlled the unborn- whether or not they’d be carried to term, what genetic issues they’d have, etc. She was adjusting poorly and was really emotionally affected by the cold impartiality of her job. She was being picked on by the previous new recruits, sisters who joined in the 1960’s and were called the Gemini.

They could take a person’s hair and put it on a blue flame and instantly see everything they’d done in their lives. Then they could spin the hair longer by stretching it over the fire and add more events to it. Somehow, this would be transmitted in the form of light.

They had a go-between that they called Mercury, who looked like Nathan Fillion and took the form of a pizza delivery boy so he could mingle in all crowds, but he actually delivered and collected light.

Things got weird when one day, Mercury arrived at the Lightbringer hq and said he had a delivery for them for an insane number of pizzas. His car was overflowing with pizza. Everyone’s like, “Dude, where did you get those? You’re not actually a real pizza delivery guy” and he’s like “I don’t know, they just appeared in my car!”

After that, things got creepy with huge world events happening that none of the Lightbringers took credit for. They started being in multiple places at once. One would be talking to an associate then go upstairs to their room, then the associate would look out the window and see that person standing outside looking up with a spooky smile.

The Lightbringers kept arguing about who did what, then would take individual strands of their hair and place them in the flames to show without a doubt that they weren’t doing what they were seen doing.

At one point, the Lucifer guy was clearly seen about to set off a bomb in a major town square during a spring festival. Suddenly, the real guy appeared the square, transformed into a giant jackal-headed Anubis form, roared really loudly and then dispersed into a flock of crows to scare away the people from the square and protect them from the bomb.

Finally, they all cornered the new girl and said they knew what was up. They said that she, with her powers to control who was born, manifested these doppelgänger versions of the other Lightbringers to do dark things so that she would only have to do light things to balance them out and not have a guilty conscience.

She argued that she wouldn’t even know how to do that and the Lucifer guy solemnly said, “You don’t yet know the full scope of your power or how much we all must keep in check. Some things are born out of subconscious wishes.”

Then a duplicate of the new girl suddenly appeared behind Lucifer with a knife and a creepy smile and then I woke up.

[rwbyconversations]

Why I Think the Fall of Beacon worked compared to the Battle of Haven

A long time ago, on a blog not so far away, I wrote a post during the Volume 5 hiatus about why I thought the Scuffle of Haven didn’t work on... well, any level, and in hindsight I stand by a lot of that post. I still believe that many of the points I raised against the Haven Battle remain valid to this day, though I could have expressed my points more efficiently, and as a consequence, I’ll be wary of any big conflicts once RWBY reaches Atlas or Vacuo.

But one of the points I mentioned during that post was that I thought the Fall of Beacon was a far better example of not just a season finale, but the climax of an arc. I’ve talked before about why I feel Cinder’s plan in the Beacon volumes remains rather underrated, and while the first half has some... questionable... fights, Volume 3′s back half was a sign that the crew could make fights on par with Monty even after his passing, while the writing and technical work behind the scenes showed that when the crew were firing on all cylinders anything was possible.

So this week, I’d like to write about why I think the Fall of Beacon worked so well in Volume 3, alongside a few anecdotes about where in contrast, Haven falls flat. 

1) It changed the tone and status quo, and put team RWBY into perspective

Up until Volume 3, RWBY played a lot of its tropes straight, especially when it came to the setting of the show. We got to meet the characters and see them interact in a collection of light adventures, eventually leading to the most classic of anime cliches, the tournament arc. 

Long-time anime fans know that nothing of any real importance for wider plots happens at tournament arcs, so people went into Volume 3 expecting some popcorn thriller action- some light, breezy and fun fights to wile away the time. And while the early half of Volume 3 had some... less than ideal fights with the exception of Mercury and Emerald vs Coco and Yatsuhashi (RIP to the SSSN fans who wanted Sage and Scarlet’s only fight to be good), a lot of the character dynamics allowed the viewer to still derive some enjoyment. Weiss and Winter’s dynamic in the early episodes is a delight to see, to say nothing of Qrow hanging out with Ruby and Yang. All of this changes as we reach Chapter 6, Fall, but I have a separate point about how Chapters 6-9 build up to the Fall magnificently so we’ll get back to the current point we’re on. 

“I suppose at least my fights can’t get much worse from here on out?” 

“Oh COME ON!”

Volume 3′s first half set up a rather casual tournament arc after two volumes of it being built up in the background, and until Yang fights Mercury, that attitude sticks around. It’s after this that the back half begins to build up towards a disaster in the making. To take a quote from Ozpin: 

There's an energy in the air now. A question in the back of everyone's minds. If this is the size of our defenses, what is it we're expecting to fight?

After the Fall begins though? Nothing is quite so certain, and the status quo quickly falls to shreds as Beacon begins to fall. The show takes an immediately darker turn with only Roman’s jovial antics providing levity- and even that requires reaching to the gallows for humor. Soon everything the show and audience took for granted is kicked to the curb, as Grimm swarm the school that we had become accustomed to over the past two and a half prior volumes of antics. The breezy tone is completely gone, with Battle of Beacon having several scenes of the horror of the Fall in plain sight- my personal favorite is when Ozpin is watching Vale security feeds and he sees a rooftop with people on it, waving for help as a Grimm slowly climbs up the side. It’s almost harrowing in how much the image says. And that’s not even the worst of it, as the Battle stretches on and the heroes become more exhausted, everything begins to turn against them- first the initial wave of Grimm, then the White Fang, then the Atlas mechs turn on the Huntsmen and finally Kevin himself begins airdropping reinforcements. It’s a never ending stream of enemies and most of the Huntsmen can barely stand by chapter 12. 

Perhaps the most drastic change that the Fall of Beacon episodes provide is how RWBY are put into perspective against the villains, starting with Mercury casually swatting Ruby aside like an irritating fly. He’s hardly even trying and he manages to distract Ruby long enough for Pyrrha to kill Penny, even managing to land a hit on Ruby while she’s speeding towards him with her Semblance- a feat no one else had managed beforehand. And even when Ruby slips through and gets outside in time just to watch Penny die...

You know what they say, if you love something, never do it for free. 

After an entire volume of standout fights, from Coco and Yatsuhashi, to Yang, and even a full-fledged Maiden in Amber, Mercury was a constant standout fighting wise all volume and he earned the right to grin like a loon as he watched Ruby break down.

Similarly, Adam was a juggernaut when Blake ran across him, easily cutting her down to size and, when Yang came running, made short work of her too. Adam had already built a reputation as menacing from the Black Trailer, and Heroes and Monsters did its part in reaffirming that he was a dangerous foe who was not to be trifled with. He effortless dominates the “fight” and isn’t even winded by the time he has Blake and Yang dead for rights. 

Even our mightiest heroes fare poorly against the villains- Cinder with the power of the Fall Maiden is able to effortlessly kill Ozpin and Pyrrha, stripping the heroes of their mentor figure and their most powerful fighter in one fall swoop. Were it not for Ruby’s Silver Eyes, Cinder likely would have gone on to clean house with the rest of the Huntsmen barring some insane luck. 

Volume 3′s final quarter is a sudden, horrifying and effective tonal shift that properly conveys the horror of the events unfolding, all while showing in the wider narrative where our heroes fall compared to the villains- and in every instance, the heroes come up short, with even Ozpin and Pyrrha themselves dying at Cinder’s hand. It’s a bleak image to end the Volume on as Team RWBY scatter to the wind while the villains get away with their pride and dignity intact, firmly setting themselves up as RWBY’s superior in direct combat for their next confrontation-

I’m not bitter.

Meanwhile the only status quo change that Haven brings to the table is “RWBY are back together and get a lamp.” That’s it. That’s the big change from this volume, since the only casualties are a bunch of one-off characters that are introduced in the same volume they die in. Much of the narrative stakes die in the first half thanks to Weiss’s impalement and many of the villains lose the intimidating credibility than they earned through Volume 3. It’s a joke of a climax that brings nothing to the wider narrative of the show and has far less of an impact than the Fall of Beacon, barring how it utterly destroyed the threat factor of most of the villains there and required for Adam an entire trailer insisting that Adam wasn’t a complete joke, the effectiveness of which still has yet to be seen.

2) It feels significant and carries throughout multiple environments

One of the smarter choices made about the Fall of Beacon was that the characters are split up across multiple different arenas to help create the sense that this is a large-scale battle. Ruby, JNPR and many of the students start in the Amity Arena where Port and Oobleck stay behind, before heading down to Beacon’s courtyard to hold that area. There, they meet with Weiss, Blake and Yang, before the latter two go to the food hall for the Adam encounter. Ruby herself goes to the airships to help take back the skies leading to her battle with Torchwick. We have frequent scenes of Ozpin in his office until he comes down to begin the Aura transfer with Pyrrha in the Vault. Meanwhile, Qrow, Goodwitch and Ironwood take to Vale’s streets (Ironwood not willingly) and fight the Grimm there. 

Your token reminder that Ruby vs Roman and Neo has some of the best teamwork in the entire show and it’s being done by the villains who weren’t part of the original plans for the series

Breaking that down to its core components, we have the courtyard, airship, arena, food hall and streets. CRWBY use a lot of recurring environments throughout the Fall of Beacon episodes- the deck of the airship for Ruby vs Roman and Neo and the landing zone where Ironwood fights the Alpha Beowolf are the only wholly original fight arenas made for these episodes, while the courtyard, Vault, and streets were all areas we had seen previously. Not only did this save on area budget, but it granted a sense of weight to the fights- we had seen these locations before, had scenes in them that gave them an emotional weight. Scattering the heroes across these different maps spreads the Battle out, making it easier for the crew to work on individual scenes since it lessened the risk of having people just standing around doing nothing, but it gave each character an individual chance to shine in their own arena of combat. Perhaps most obviously, the different locals gave us new arenas to enjoy as well instead of just “a room a plaza and a cave.” Ironwood may not have gotten his two small but glorious mo,ments against the Grimm and mechs if he was sharing an arena with everyone else.

Here comes the general Ladies and gentlemen Here comes the general The moment you’ve been waiting for Here comes the general The pride of Atlas Here comes the general James IRONDADDY

... Meanwhile Haven just stuck everyone in a bland open room and had people standing around doing nothing for most of the Scuffle, if they weren’t teleporting around the room like ninjas. 

Uh hi Mercury. You wanna... do something? Just gonna let them have their thing? OK? You do you buddy. 

I don’t think there’s much more you can add to that.

3) The build up to the Fall is superb

As I’ve mentioned, while the first half of Volume 3 until Yang vs Mercury has some of the show’s weakest fights until Volume 5, the second half more than makes up for it on a fight level while also setting the stage for the devastating final string of episodes. Beginning of the End, PVP and Heroes and Monsters are all in my top 10 episodes for a reason, folks. Chapter 7 in particular finally gave the audience some much-needed background on Team CEM, as we saw Cinder recruit Emerald and Mercury in moments of weakness and plant the seeds for the Fall as she meets with Roman and Adam (while presumably getting the virus from Watts that allows her to initiate Order 66). Destiny lets us see the fallout of Yang vs Mercury, Jaune and Pyrrha’s last quiet moment together, and is the last calm before the storm as the episode ends with Penny about to fight Pyrrha and Mercury staring Ruby down. All the while, the sense of unease builds up each episode, starting relatively tame in the premiere before the dial gets nudged up a little each more every week until...

“Polarity vs metal. That could be baaaaad.” Look I like taking screenshots of Merc don’t kinkshame me.

Volume 3′s third quarter does an excellent job in setting up the immediate stakes of the Fall of Beacon, and separates Team RWBY so they’re scattered and confused once the fireworks begin to go off. Pyrrha’s arc continues and prepares itself for the conclusion awaiting her atop the Beacon tower, while Ruby gets to display some street smarts and quickly puts together some dangling threads after her talk with Velvet and spotting Emerald among the crowd. The major pieces are set up well in advance and given time to breathe ahead of the tidal wave that’s about to hit the shoreline. 

Meanwhile in Haven: RNJR sit around a house for a month and wait for the plot to invite them over to the climax, Blake just invites herself and most of the “stakes” are either set up in A Perfect Storm (AKA one of the two worst episodes in the entire show) or come up out of nowhere with little foreshadowing (see: Jaune being suicidal). I don’t know about you but I’ll pick one approach to seeing up a climax over the other every time and... I think it’s clear which I’ll side with

In conclusion, The Fall of Beacon is an expertly put together string of episodes, with the back half of Volume 3 wrapping up with a neat little bow and remaining the peak of RWBY (Heroes and Monsters is my personal favorite episode in the show). Barring the finale timeskipping after Ruby uses her Silver Eyes, depriving us of countless emotionally gut-wrenching scenes- that we never saw JNR reacting to Pyrrha’s death is the one massive black mark over the finale- it’s a near perfect collection that encapsulates what RWBY can be when firing at all cylinders. And that is a fact that becomes more amazing when one considers how Poser was actively fighting against the crew as they made the episodes due to not being ideal software for the episodes. In the midst of these episodes the villains reign supreme and firmly show how much stronger they are than RWBY. Their victories are ash in the mouth in the moment, but any writer worth their salt knows that villains winning now only makes their downfall and defeat that much more of a reward for the heroes when they come out on top.

It concludes several character arcs, sets up countless others as everyone recuperates from the Fall (most predominantly Ruby, Yang and JN_R), and set the seeds for RWBY to move beyond a generic high school battle anime and become its own beast, worthy of carrying Monty’s legacy with it to greener pastures. 

The Battle of Haven meanwhile, only looks like more of a bad-taste joke when put alongside the Fall of Beacon, looking flatter and having a lot less color and visual range, alongside consistently weaker animation in all regards except facial. It’s all just the same open room for four weeks straight, mixed with a courtyard and a cave, all of which were locations we didn’t care about due to not spending any time in them or Haven at large thanks to being locked up in a house all season. It was a climax wrought with animation errors, a climax that destroyed the credibility of most of the participating villains and forgot that people watch RWBY to see fight scenes, not see them standing around watching offscreen fights or not doing anything at all. It was a climax where the heroes only won because the theme song was called “Triumph” and because the script said they needed to win.

I linked to it in my Haven video, but FloofArtist’s breakdown of the animation errors in the Battle of Haven remains an almost harrowing experience to watch. Information such as storyboard dates shown in some of the CRWBY episodes show that the Battle was still in storyboarding during December and early January, just a month before it was set to air, and... it shows. Painfully. The Haven episodes reek of being rushed out the door to satiate deadlines, less a product of passion and more a frenzied product of getting the last essential renders done before being sent out like a sacrificial lamb.

While Volume 6 has so far managed to move past the failings of the Haven Battle in that it’s actually good, we’ll need to wait and see for if the Battles of Atlas and Vacuo retain the flaws seen at Haven, and the fans will constantly have Haven hanging overhead like a specter, forever wary that such a sudden and sharp downturn in quality could happen at a moment’s notice. Based off the reaction in-house, between the sudden changing of the writing system, Conner Perkins becoming a co-director and the numerous shots taken at Volume 5 in pre-release for Volume 6, it seems CRWBY themselves have that specter overhead and are desperate to avoid a similar calamity. Only time will tell, and while I have hope based off the stellar execution of the Fall of Beacon, we’re one for two on good climaxes involving Academy wide battles so far. 

But in the defense of the show, the Fall of Beacon remains the high-point of RWBY on a narrative and character level. The back half of the season makes up for the weak fights of the first half and allows for an emotionally gripping narrative that collects elements from all three prior volumes and combines them into an emotional gut-punch. The finale may have several black spots over it, but the ride to it contains RWBY at its absolute best, and certified that I would be an avid watcher of this show for years to come. 

Thank you for reading. Sharing this article around is a great benefit to me if you appreciated it, and all feedback is much obliged. Please consider following if you enjoyed the piece and wish to see more.  I hope you enjoyed it.

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives ‘The Show Must Go On’ (S03E36) Analysis

You know that slow build? That treading water feeling we’ve had for the last couple weeks?

The shit has started to hit the fan.

Come on in to hear my thoughts on ‘The Show Must Go On.’

So we open with Elias calling everyone except Melanie into his office to play them a tape.  Melanie is … elsewhere.  Elias offers them help, and believes the statement to be useful against the Stranger.

The statement is old, by Abraham Janssen about a mechanized chess playing robot created by Wolfgang von Kempelen (whoohoo!  Another actual historical figure!).  And interestingly enough, this may be one of the oldest statements in the Archive, dated from 1787.  Even ‘Schwartzwald’ was previously dated from an event taking place in 1815.  This makes it not only old, but makes it a statement that predates the Magnus Institute by 31 years.  How long was Jonah Magnus collecting statements of the supernatural before he officially founded the Institute?  Was he the first Archivist, as it seems that he did indeed collect proper narrative statements in the same way that Gertrude and Jon did?

It sounds as though the Turk was what Nikola is now.  It wore the gorilla skin.  It went from automaton to avatar, and it danced.  The speech machine provided the music, the sacrifice was the creator of the being in the first place (possibly indicating the fate of Joseph Grimaldi).

And by the end of the ceremony, all the automata were half-human, indicating that the Unknowing will bring inanimate beings closer and closer to human.  It’s essentially one massive plunge into the Uncanny Valley.

Whatever happens at the end of the ceremony, it sounds … fairly Lovecraftian.  And by that I mean, almost impossible to properly describe.  The narrator’s description goes completely off the rails, and would likely require some line by line analysis to try to tease out what was happening in reality, and that’s assuming there’s anything relatable happening in reality.  It could well be that, during such a ritual, we really do enter full-on indescribable cosmic horror.

What’s also interesting is that another avatar stopped it before its completion, but not an avatar of the Beholding.  Gertrude assumed that the avatar acting against the Stranger was one of the Slaugher, but I’m not altogether certain it couldn’t be the End as well.  Still, the Slaughter makes the most sense.  It seems like there’s always one or two avatars that end up trying to stop the rituals (though it’s unclear whether they would try to stop their own.  Gertrude would, but the Soldier might not).  

The ceremony itself was stopped with relative ease, because it turns out that an intricate dance to end the world gets stopped pretty hard by a cannon.  It also helps that during the rituals there is a degree of profound vulnerability.  Add an explosive to that, and it’s fairly direct.  It was even enough to tempt Gertrude, at least for her plan B.  She had other unknown preferences, possibly for something more subtle.  We know she had plans for the gorilla skin, but there may be other plans as well.

Our team today, on the other hand, are all on board for plan B, or at least Jon, Basira, and Daisy are. Melanie and Martin stay behind, likely to take on Elias.  Intitally, I thought splitting the team up like this, and particularly pitting Martin and Melanie against Elias, seemed dramatically stupid.  But on consideration, I think I get it.  Elias has to be distracted for any plan to work.  And while Martin is apparently a bit distracting, I imagine that the Unknowing would be the ultimate distraction.  There might not be a better time to incapacitate him, even if it means that Martin and Melanie are going to be the ones to do it.

But how could they do it? What could they utilize that would be enough to take down a proper monster like Elias?  I have a few ideas: first, there is the spider table.  If it trapped the Not-Them, could they be planning to trap Elias in the same manner?  Another is the tunnels.  Robert Smirke designed them to nullify powers.  Could they plan on trapping him down there where his abilities are cut off? Basically a prisoner beneath the Institute?

But despite this being potentially perfect timing, Tim is right.  This is going to go wrong.  This is going to go badly wrong because it’s horror and our protagonists are disasters. I’m just not certain where it’s going to go wrong.  

Between Tim’s comments and Daisy’s comments I’m not sure which of them is gunning for Jon harder at this point.  Tim is nihilism personified at this point, and blaming Jon seems to bring him comfort. So he blames Jon and hopes to kill him and Nikola together.

And that?  That makes me wonder if the Soldier isn’t going to make another appearance.  Tim is coming in with an axe, and he really doesn’t care who dies, and it sounds more and more like Tim might be setting himself up to become an avatar of the Slaughter.

Daisy, meanwhile, cannot be unaware of Jon’s ‘becoming’, especially after her reaction to Elias’ comment about it (I have little doubt he did that specifically to make her less trusting of Jon, if she was at all trusting to begin with).  As a hunter, she practically smells the supernatural, and she’s hated Jon since he first compelled her.  He’s a monster in her eyes, albeit a monster currently aligned with her desires.  But I have the strong suspicion that killing him and stopping the Unknowing in one fell swoop is going to be her ideal.

That leaves Basira with her to stop her killing Jon.  And the question to my mind is whether she can do it by talking Daisy down, or whether Basira is going to have to kill Daisy to save Jon.  Either way, Daisy is about to the end of her tether, Basira may well have to make difficult and life-changing decisions, and when all these things collide I think everyone is in enormous danger from far more than Nikola Orsinov.

But let’s not count Nikola out.  She’ll be wearing the skin of an Archivist, and I’m not sure what effects that might have. If any of Gertrude’s powers transfer over, that could pose a huge challenge to Jon, who might get his own powers turned back on him.  But on the other hand, Gertrude was canny and dangerous.  Is it possible that her last plan to avert the Unknowing was her own body? Could she have rigged herself to destroy Nikola and the Unknowing with her own skin?  If anyone would be capable of that, it would be Gertrude.

Conclusions

Things are heating up now, and with a proper description of the Unknowing—as well as a way to stop it—in hand, things seem to be going along in a proper direction.  But trying to enact two very complicated and dangerous plans while separated is going to be incredibly dangerous.  Martin and Melanie are two very vanilla mortals facing down a very powerful monster of the Beholding.  Jon is walking straight into potential death with one ally and two total loose cannons with him (possibly literally), one of whom has an axe and the other who has C4 and a potential to kill him along with the mannequins.  These are odds that leave Jane Prentiss and the Not-Them in the dust, and it’s not even the only fight that will be fought during the Unknowing.  

With four more episodes this season, something has to go wrong.  Badly so.  Maybe everything goes wrong.  The one thing I’m convinced of is that we have no idea how this is going to play out. We speculate every season.  We think we work out what’s going to happen, and then Jonny takes the story into a hard left turn.  So, as clear as things feel right now, I don’t think they’re that clear at all.  The Unknowing may be different, as was mentioned in this episode.  Daisy or Tim could have any number of alternative plans for the Unknowing and for Jon.  The interaction between Nikola and Gertrude’s skin could change everything.  Martin and Melanie and Elias’ situation could play out entirely unexpectedly.

EVERYTHING will probably play out unexpectedly.  I guess what I’m saying is that everyone ought to brace themselves, and don’t get at all comfortable with what you think might happen.  We still have four episodes to go.

[dfroza]

A new covenant of grace written upon the heart

to be known.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 8th chapter of the book of Hebrews:

So let me sum up what we’ve covered so far, for there is much we have said: we have a High Priest, a perfect Priest who sits in the place of honor in the highest heavens, at the right hand of the throne of the Majestic One, a Minister within the heavenly sanctuary set up by the Lord, not by human hands.

As I have said, it is the role of every high priest to offer gifts and sacrifices to God, so clearly this Priest of ours must have something to offer as well. If He were on earth, then He would not be a priest at all because there are already priests who can offer gifts according to the law of Moses in a sanctuary that is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary. We know this because God admonished Moses as he set up the tent for the Lord’s sanctuary: “Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I showed you on the mountain.” But now Jesus has taken on a new and improved priestly ministry; and in that respect, He has been made the Mediator of a better covenant established on better promises. Remember, if the first covenant had been able to reconcile everyone to God, there would be no reason for a second covenant. God found fault with the priests when He said through the prophet Jeremiah,

“Look! The time is coming,” the Eternal Lord says,

“when I will bring about a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.

It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand

and led them out of slavery in the land of Egypt.

They did not remain faithful to that covenant,

so,” the Eternal One says, “I turned away from them.

But when those days are over,” the Eternal One says, “I will make

this kind of covenant with the people of Israel:

I will put My laws on their minds

and write them upon their hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be My people.

In those days, they won’t need to teach each other My ways

or to say to each other, ‘Know the Eternal.’

In those days, all will know Me,

from the least to the greatest.

I will be merciful when they fail,

and I will erase their sins and wicked acts out of My memory

as though they had never existed.”

With the words “a new covenant,” God made the first covenant old, and what is old and no longer effective will soon fade away completely.

The Book of Hebrews, Chapter 8 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 48th chapter of the book of Jeremiah with words against the pride of Moab:

This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, has to say about Moab:

Eternal One: Woe to the city of Nebo, for she is in ruins.

So, too, will Kiriathaim be put to shame when she is captured.

The proud fortress of Moab will be humbled and shattered into pieces.

No one will praise you, Moab—that time has gone.

Instead, in places like Heshbon, men are planning your destruction.

“Come,” they will say, “and let us finish off that nation.”

Indeed, the town of Madmen will be silenced,

for war will surely find you.

Do you hear the voice from Horonaim—

the cries rising up from the ruins and desolation?

Moab is broken,

and her little ones cry in desperation.

The defeated make their way up Luhith, crying bitterly as they go;

as they descend to Horonaim, they hear the anguished cries of destruction.

Run for your lives! Save yourselves!

Live in the desert like a juniper bush, alone and forsaken.

You depended on your own works and your own wealth,

and now you will be humbled and taken captive.

Your so-called god, Chemosh, will go with you into exile

along with his priests and officials.

The destroyer is coming to each of your towns; none of them will escape.

The valley will be ruined;

The plateau will be destroyed

because I, the Eternal One, have spoken.

Give Moab wings so she can fly away.

Her cities will be a wasteland with no one living in them.

A curse on any who do not finish the work I, the Eternal One, have given you! A curse on anyone who holds back his sword and refuses to shed blood.

Moab has been at rest since his early days—

like wine that is carefully left to age,

Not poured from jar to jar,

not going from nation to nation in exile.

And so his flavor has remained; his aroma has not faded.

But all of that will change. Look, in the coming days, I, the Eternal One, declare that I will send those who will upend him, stirring him up and pouring him out until his jars have nothing left. They will empty his jars and smash the empty jugs.

Then Moab will be ashamed of his powerless god, Chemosh, just as the people of Israel were ashamed of Bethel when they trusted in their false gods.

Eternal One: How can you still boast,

“We are mighty warriors, brave in battle?”

Because Moab is destroyed;

invaders have laid waste his towns.

His best young men have gone down to slaughter.

So say I, the King whose name is the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies.

The fall of Moab is at hand;

his disaster is coming quickly.

Grieve for him, you neighbors of Moab,

all who know his name.

Say, “Look how his mighty scepter is broken,

how the splendor of his staff is gone!”

You people of Dibon, come down from your glory on the hills

and sit on the dry, dusty ground and wait,

For the same one who destroyed Moab

is coming against you and will tear down your strongholds as well.

Stand by the road and watch closely,

you people of Aroer.

Call out to the refugees running from Moab.

Ask them what happened!

And they will answer: “Moab has been humiliated and crushed.

Weep for him, and cry out.

Go down to the Arnon River and

proclaim that Moab has been destroyed.”

Judgment has come to the cities of the plain: to Holon, Jahzah and Mephaath; to Dibon, Nebo, and Beth-diblathaim; to Kiriathaim, Beth-gamul, and Beth-meon; to Kerioth and Bozrah. To all the cities of Moab, far and near, judgment has come.

Eternal One: The symbols of his strength are gone; the horn of Moab has been cut off, and his arm broken.

Make Moab drink deeply from this cup until he is drunk, for he has exalted himself above the Eternal. Make him drink until he wallows in his own vomit; then he will be ridiculed by all who see him. Did you not ridicule Israel? Was he guilty of a crime? Was he caught among thieves? Is that why you, Moab, shake your head in contempt every time you speak of him?

Eternal One: Run from your towns and live in the wilderness,

you citizens of Moab;

Hide among the rocks

like doves who nest among the cliffs.

We have all heard about the pride of Moab—

so vain and so smug.

We have all heard about her pride and arrogance

and her overconfident heart.

I, too, know of the arrogant outbursts, but they are pointless;

empty boasts accomplish nothing.

This is why I will mourn for Moab; for all her people, I will cry aloud;

for the men of Kir-heres, I will moan.

You who tend the prolific vineyards in Sibmah,

I will cry for you more than I did for Jazer.

Your vines once spread as far as the sea, as far as the sea of Jazer.

But now the destroyer has spoiled your summer harvest and sweet grapes.

The joy of the harvest is gone from Moab’s orchards and vineyards.

For I have stopped the flow of wine; no one treads the grapes.

The land is full of shouting, but they are not shouts of joy.

The anguish of their cries rises from Heshbon to Elealeh and Jahaz, from Zoar all the way to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah; for even the waters of Nimrim will dry up.

Eternal One: I will put an end to idol worship in Moab, to those who make offerings on shrines in high places and burn incense to so-called gods.

Like the somber sound of a flute, my heart mourns for Moab. My heart mourns for the men of Kir-heres, for everything they had is gone.

For every head is shaved, and every beard is cut short;

every hand is cut, and every waist is wrapped in sackcloth.

Eternal One: On every rooftop in Moab and on every street corner,

there is nothing but mourning

Because I have smashed Moab like a jar that no one wants.

How broken he is! How the people wail!

How the once-proud Moab turns away in shame!

See how Moab has become a laughingstock

and a horror to all his neighbors.

Eternal One: Look in the distance: an eagle will swoop down

and spread his wings over Moab, his prey.

The cities will be captured and the strongholds seized.

On that day the heart of Moab’s warriors

Will be like the heart of a woman in labor—helpless and vulnerable.

The nation of Moab will be no more

because he dares to defy the Eternal.

Terror and traps and snares lie ahead, O citizens of Moab.

Eternal One: If you run from the terror, you will fall into a pit.

If you climb out of the pit, you will be caught in a trap.

There is no escape, for I will bring these disasters against Moab;

the year of their judgment has come at last.

Run if you will, but in Heshbon’s shadow the refugees are helpless.

Look! A fire rages from Heshbon; destroying flames leap from Sihon;

They consume the northern regions of Moab

and destroy his clamoring rebels.

Woe to you, O Moab! Worshipers of Chemosh are destroyed;

your sons are sent away, your daughters taken captive.

But even so, in latter times the day will come

when I will restore the fortunes of Moab.

This is the end of Jeremiah’s oracle of judgment against Moab.

The Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 48 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Thursday, September 30 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons that looks at Light and fear:

For reasons not explained in Scripture, God chose to begin creating the world in chaos: תהוּ וָבהוּ וְחשֶׁךְ / tohu vavohu ve’choshekh: “confusion and emptiness and darkness” (Gen. 1:2). From chaos and darkness God would shine forth light - indeed, the divine light was the first of all God’s creations (a counterpart of the “Light of the World” Himself): יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי־אוֹר / yehi or, vayhi-or: "Let there be light, and there was light" (Gen. 1:3). God’s handiwork in creation, then, first involves His mastery over chaos...

God speaks from the midst of a whirlwind (סְעָרָה, “tempest”), demonstrating that He is LORD over the seemingly chaotic world around us (Job 40:6). “Greek-minded” theology is more inclined to seek after “Apollo” (the pagan ideal of harmony and order) than the seemingly chaotic ways of the LORD God of Israel. We often want some sort of “systematic theology” and for God to be explained to us in an orderly, logical way. There is danger here that we forget that the LORD is called Esh Okhlah (אֵשׁ אכְלָה), a “consuming Fire” (Deut. 4:24, Heb. 12:29). God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways (Isa. 55:8-9). As the prophet Isaiah also said: יוֹצֵר אוֹר וּבוֹרֵא חשֶׁךְ עשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם וּבוֹרֵא רָע אֲנִי יְהוָה עשֶׂה כָל־אֵלֶּה / “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create woe; I the LORD do all these things” (Isa. 45:7).

We live in fearful times, chaverim. People are afraid of losing their money, their health, their freedom, and so on. But we must be careful here. The fear of “losing control” can move us to anger, yet the sages liken anger to idolatry since it denies the providence of God in our lives (i.e., hashgacha partit: השגחה פרטית). Anger over the apparent chaos of life implies that we don’t really believe that God is in control -- that He is speaking “from the midst of the whirlwind” -- and therefore we feel aggrieved and perhaps embittered by what might happen to us. We must look to God as the Master of the storms of life and draw closer to Him in trust. The Scriptures affirm that for those who love God “all things work together for good” even if the present hour seems incomprehensible and even dangerous (Rom. 8:28-39).

Yeshua warned us not to live in fear of man, but rather to live in fear of God (Matt. 10:28). The worst that man can do is “kill the body” but he has no real power over the soul... Tribulation - the “squeezing of grapes” - is part of the life of faith, but we are invited to come “boldly” before the Throne of Grace (παρρησίας τῷ θρόνῳ τῆς χάριτος) to find help for our lives (Heb. 4:16). Note that the word translated “boldly” in this verse (παρρησίας) means that we can speak freely to God from the center of the chaos of our hearts -- without fear or shame. We don’t need to conceal ourselves from the Divine Light, since this is the very Light that overmasters the "tohu va'vohu" chaos of creation! Those who accept that God is in complete control of their lives are set free from the terrible burdens of fear and outrage. Abiding in ahavah shlemah (אַהֲבָה שְׁלֵמָה, God’s “perfect love”) means that you can let go.

May God help us all remember: חֶרְדַּת אָדָם יִתֵּן מוֹקֵשׁ וּבוֹטֵחַ בַּיהוה יְשֻׂגָּב / “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD will be made safe” (Prov. 29:25). Note that this “fear of man” is not just the fear of external dangers but more deeply is the fear we embrace within our hearts - our own insecurity that undermines our faith.... May the LORD help us abide in His perfect love, free from the ravages of fear, anger, and anxiety. Amen. [Hebrew for Christians]

9.29.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

September 30, 2021

The Prophet's Chamber

“And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.” (2 Kings 4:9-10)

This sparsely furnished little room, built by a kindly woman and her elderly husband, was the prototype of all the so-called “prophet’s chambers” that have been built for traveling teachers and evangelists ever since.

Little did this simple couple anticipate what fruit their kindness would bear one day. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,” the Bible says, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2). In the first place, to show his appreciation, Elisha prayed that the Lord would give them a son, and God miraculously answered (2 Kings 4:16-17).

Then, tragically, the boy died quite suddenly several years later while Elisha was at Mount Carmel, some 15 miles away. The Shunammite woman laid her son on Elisha’s bed in the prophet’s chamber, then rode hastily to find Elisha and bring him to the boy. The round trip must have taken her two days or more, and the boy’s dead body lay on the prophet’s bed in the little room all that time.

But then Elisha prayed once again, and the most amazing event took place there (2 Kings 4:33-35). For only the second time in history, a dead person was restored to life.

The Shunammite mother and her son are never heard from again. But for 3,000 years the testimony of a little chamber and the love and faith of the godly woman who prepared it as a simple service for her Lord and His prophet, and the godly mother who sacrificially loved her son, has been an inspiration and example to multitudes. HMM

[wilddaydreamingcat]

The Untamed 陈情令 - Translation of Chinese Subs - Episode 9

The Untamed – Episode 9

Notes:

The line breaks mostly correspond to each line of mandarin subtitles within the episode. However, I have switched some around so that the English translation can make more sense and flow more smoothly.

I’ve decided to re-translate the female address of 姑娘 (gū niang) as ‘Young Lady’ (for example ‘Young Lady Wen’ instead of Miss Wen) as I felt that this would suit the ancient time period better. This will be adjusted in the previous episodes that I’ve translated.

Please do not post this outside Tumblr, thank you.

I am skipping the recap.

  Nie Huaisang: Save me! Brother Wei! Brother Lan! Why am I always the unlucky one?

  Wei Wuxian: Be careful!

  Lan Wangji: Stop. They are not dead. Did you forget? You said so yourself. Look at their pupils.

  Wei Wuxian: Lan Zhan, do you have a better plan?

  Lan Wangji: Charge out.

  Nie Huaisang: Wait, wait! Brother Lan, Brother Wei. Isn’t it rather rash for us to go out like that? Shouldn’t we have a good discussion on what our next move is? We’re courting death by going out like this, right? Brother Wei, I don’t want to die yet! My golden sparrow...*

* Translation Note: In case anyone has forgotten, it’s the bird that Huaisang caught in episode 4.

  Wei Wuxian: Listen to me, Brother Nie. When we go out, you must follow me closely. Don’t ever let go, understand?

================================================

  Wei Wuxian: Let’s go.

  Jiang Cheng: Stop there. Stop there.

  Nie Huaisang: Why is she attacking again?

  Jiang Cheng: You ignorant little brats trespassed on the Goddess Temple. Do you plead guilty?

  Nie Huaisang: Spare us!

  Jiang Cheng: Wei Wuxian! You left on your own without permission! Do you accept punishment?

  Wei Wuxian: Jiang Cheng! If you don’t come out right now, Lan Zhan will get really pissed. Jiang Cheng, why are you here?

  Jiang Cheng, Since you’re here, why can’t I? You’ve been travelling all over, how carefree!

  Wei Wuxian: Without you nagging at my ears, I’m naturally feeling more carefree.

  Jiang Cheng: How dare you say that! Leaving us a note and just disappearing! Did you know how much I... ...my sister worried for you?

  Nie Huaisang: Brother Jiang! It’s enough for you to just give Brother Wei a fright! Why are you dragging in Brother Wangji and me as well? Both of us are... Oh, the silence spell has been removed.

  Jiang Cheng: I don’t know who got dragged in this time round.

  Wei Wuxian: Jiang Cheng, that’s enough. I was the one who wanted to follow Lan Zhan. Even if you wanted to blame someone, don’t blame him.

  Jiang Cheng: I haven’t finished lecturing you, and you’re already speaking up for him! I really don’t know what on earth you guys are up to! All of you could see how dangerous it was! If you didn’t have Young Lady Wen...

  Wei Wuxian: Young Lady Wen! Wen Qing is here too?

  Jiang Cheng: Oh no! How long has the flute music stopped? I’m afraid Young Lady Wen has run into danger!

  Wei Wuxian: Where is she? How did both of you come together?

===============================================

  Jiang Cheng: Young Lady Wen!

  Nie Huaisang: That owl again! Is Wen Chao nearby as well? Why is he trying to harm us?

  Jiang Cheng: Young Lady Wen, are you all right?

  Wen Qing: Young Master Jiang, didn’t I tell you that once you save them...

  Wei Wuxian: Young Lady Wen, why are you here as well?

  Nie Huaisang: They’re coming again!

  Wen Qing: All of you, hurry up and leave!

  Wei Wuxian: We’ll leave together!

  Wen Qing: I can’t leave. Young Master Jiang, you promised me that while you were here, you would follow my orders, so take them away quickly.

  Jiang Cheng: Young Lady Wen, you can’t save them. Soon, it'll be too late!

  Lan Wangji: You do know how to save them.

  Nie Huaisang: Isn’t this caused by the Dancing Goddess’s soul absorption? Can they still be saved?

  Wei Wuxian: Wen Qing, I don’t care why you appeared here, but now, we’re all trapped here. We must work as one if we want to leave, If you know how to restore them to their senses, I hope that you can tell me now.

  Wen Qing: All right. I’ll tell all of you. The power that is controlling them now is not strong. Wen Chao is merely borrowing the power of the Yin Iron that Wen Ruohan sealed within the owl to manipulate them. If you really want to help them, you must first kill the owl.

  Wei Wuxian: You should have told us earlier.

  Lan Wangji: Wei Ying, cast the Golden Net Barrier to protect them.

  Jiang Cheng: Wei Wuxian, what are you doing?

  Nie Huaisang: Brother Wei, this spell of yours will not last long. Isn’t this going to end up harming us?

  Wei Wuxian: Jiang Cheng, you’re highly skilled, so protect them well.

  Jiang Cheng: You...

  Wei Wuxian: If you can no longer hold on, then add a layer of protection to it. Aren’t you really good at this? You must protect them well! I’ve wanted to kill that owl for a long time! Wait for my return! Wait for us!

  Jiang Cheng: Wei Wuxian! You idiot!

================================================

  Wei Wuxian: Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan, where are you? Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan, where are you? Lan Zhan? Lan Zhan. What’s going on?

  Lan Wangji: Listen.

  Wei Wuxian: What is this bird reincarnated from? It’s smarter than me. Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan, where are you? Oh no! Lan Zhan hasn’t been caught by the owl, has he?

  Lan Wangji: I’m beside you.

  Wei Wuxian: Ah! You should have said something!

  Lan Wangji: The owl created these illusionary sounds and summoned the disorienting fog.

  Wei Wuxian: No problem. I’ll use my flittering light spell to break it.

  Lan Wangji: The illusionary sounds not only causes one to lose their sense of direction, it can also disrupt one’s mental state. We will be unable to focus on summoning spells right now.

  Wei Wuxian: That’s not right. Why are you not affected?

  Lan Wangji: With the illusionary sounds made by the owl, the more thoughts a person has, the more easily the person is disrupted.

  Wei Wuxian: Isn’t it obviously bullying me because of my intelligence? Lan Zhan, are you all right?

  Lan Wangji: I’m fine.

  Wei Wuxian: Did you see who was it?

  Lan Wangji: No. Wei Ying, close your five senses. Use the Crimson Rending Talisman.

==============================================

  Jiang Cheng: Wei Wuxian, that bastard! Why isn’t he back yet?

  Nie Huaisang: Thank goodness my fan is made of black iron. Otherwise... Go away! Brother Jiang, help me mend this! They almost grabbed the netting

  Jiang Cheng: Mend it yourself!

  Nie Huaisang: How do I mend it? Young Lady Wen! Hurry! Help me mend this! Young Lady Wen! Young Lady Wen, don’t go too close! They might capture you!

  Wen Qing: Granny...

=============================================

  Wei Wuxian: Lan Zhan! This move of yours is indeed effective!

  Lan Wangji: Keep silent.

  Wei Wuxian: Can your quick wit ever beat mine? That was close. Lan Zhan, thank goodness you came on time. Did you see who it was?

  Lan Wangji: Whoever it was only sent part of their spiritual senses. They did not come here personally.

  Wei Wuxian: That person got off too lightly.

  Lan Wangji: The villagers should have regained their senses. Let’s go.

  Wei Wuxian: Hey, wait for me!

  Wen Chao: Useless thing!

  Wei Wuxian: Sir, where are those three people just now?

  Villager: What? Where am I?

================================================

  Granny Wen: I’m too ashamed to face the family head. I nearly caused harm to Young Lady Qing.* This old lady is so useless!

*Translation Note: There has been some confusion with viewers thinking that Granny Wen is Wen Qing’s grandmother, but she’s not. Granny Wen actually addresses Wen Qing as 情姑娘 (qíng gū niang), literally ‘Young Lady Qing’, which is extremely deferential and polite, and not how a grandmother would address a granddaughter. If Granny Wen was her grandmother, she would be calling Wen Qing: ‘A-Qing’, ‘Qingqing’ or ‘Qing-er’ (For example, see how Yanli addresses Wei Wuxian as ‘Xianxian’ or ‘A-Xian’ without honorifics to demonstrate their close relationship). The deferential address is because Wen Qing is the leader of her branch clan. Wen Qing calls her ‘Granny’ out of respect and probably because they are relatives.

  Wen Qing: Please get up. Granny, please get up.

  Granny Wen: Young Lady Qing, I’ve let you down. I’m old and useless.

  Wen Qing: Granny. Everyone, please get up. Granny, please don’t ever say that. I’m the one who has let everybody down. All of you should leave here as soon as possible. Go wherever you want, but don’t go to Qishan, and don’t ever return to this place.

  Nie Huaisang: Brother Jiang, how do they know Young Lady Wen? Also, why did she bring us to this graveyard?

  Jiang Cheng: How would I know?

  Wei Wuxian: Jiang Cheng! Young Lady Wen!

  Nie Huaisang: Brother Wei! We’re over here! Brother Wei, I knew you would definitely defeat that owl. You are certainly full of battle spirit.

  Wei Wuxian: However, why are all of you here? Young Lady Wen, what is this place?

  Wen Qing: This is the place where the people of my clan are buried.

  Wei Wuxian: So, that temple...

  Wen Qing: You’re right. That was the Wen Clan’s ancestral hall. We are the bloodline of a branch of the Qishan Wen Clan, specialising in medicine. After we left Qishan, the clan lived in this place for generations. We didn’t expect a disaster to suddenly happen here.

===========================================

  Young Wen Qing: Father!

  Wen Qing’s Father: A-Qing, run away!

===========================================

  Wen Qing: We are the only survivors of this branch of the Wen Clan.

  Wei Wuxian: It’s because of the Dancing Goddess’s soul absorption?

  Wen Qing: Yes. From that day onwards, Wen Ning and I were taken in by the Chief Cultivator, and returned to Qishan.

  Wei Wuxian: But why would the Dancing Goddess suddenly harm people?

  Wen Qing: I don’t know either.

============================================

  Wen Chao: Father, we could have defeated Wei Wuxian and the others in one fell swoop, but that ill-raised trash, Wen Qing, actually dared to obstruct me behind my back!

  Wen Ruohan: You fool! The Wen Clan’s bloodline at Dafan Mountain are Wen Qing’s clans people. If you hadn’t used the power of the Yin Iron that I sealed within the owl to turn them into puppets, would Wen Qing have reason to go against you? Moreover, I ordered you to assist Xue Yang. Who told you to act without permission and intercept them?

  Wen Chao: I deserve your admonishment, Father. I was wrong.

  Wen Ruohan: Find the Yin Iron and bring it back. This time, there had better not be any mistakes.

  Wen Chao: Yes, Father.

==============================================

  Nie Huaisang: Please don’t let there be any trouble again.

  Wei Wuxian: As long as you’re with me, I guarantee that you won’t even lose a hair.

  Jiang Cheng: Stop boasting already. If Young Lady Wen hadn’t come to rescue you at Dafan Mountain, would you be frolicking here right now? I’ll get eight generations of bad luck following you around.

  Wei Wuxian: Jiang Cheng, if you actually feel that following me around brings bad luck, why are you still coming with me?

  Jiang Cheng: I... Who says I’m following you? To get through Dafan Mountain, this is the only road. I’d say you’re the one following me!

  Nie Huaisang: A reed flower chicken! Look! Over there!

  Wei Wuxian: How did it know that I was hungry?

  Nie Huaisang: Brother Wei, we’ll surround it, one of us in front and the other behind. Let’s go.

  Wei Wuxian: Jiang Cheng! Help me block it from there.

  Jiang Cheng: I’m not going!

  Wei Wuxian: Quick! Brother Nie has already gone far ahead! Brother Nie!

  Lan Wangji: Young Lady Wen, twenty years ago, do you truly not know why the Dancing Goddess went out of control?

  Jiang Cheng: Where’s Wei Wuxian?

  Nie Huaisang: He was saying something about needing to relieve himself just now. I guess he went to look for the latrine.

  Wen Qing: Second Young Master Lan, I said so just now. I was still a child then, and couldn’t understand anything.

  Wei Wuxian: Then, does Young Lady Wen know what was the thing missing from the Dancing Goddess’s heart? Since we left the Cloud Recesses, Wen Chao has been following our every step. Do you also not know the reason why? Young Lady Wen, if you really do not know anything, why did you suddenly come to assist us?

  Wen Qing: Wei Wuxian, you saved A-Ning’s life once, and I’ve saved you once. Both of us are even. The motto of the Wen family is “Every debt of gratitude must be repaid.” I don’t know anything else, so you shouldn’t ask me again.

  Wei Wuxian: The thing that is missing from the Dancing Goddess’s heart is the Yin Iron, right? Young Lady Wen, we were deliberately lured to this place. The old lady brought us to the Goddess Temple once we entered the village. The Dancing Goddess was awakened, but only attacked Lan Zhan, not us. If not because of the Yin Iron, then I guess there can only be one other reason: She must be attracted to Lan Zhan!

  Lan Wangji: Shut your mouth.

  Wei Wuxian: Young Lady Wen, Dafan Mountain resembles the shape of a Buddha, and has excellent feng shui. Due to this reason, this should be a place rich in spiritual energy. But while we were on the way here, we saw, very strangely, that the spiritual energy had been depleted. Even though the Dancing Goddess had been a naturally formed spiritual object from the earth, if she had wanted to transform into the shape of a human, she would still have to use the energy absorbed from other creatures. Everything had been peaceful for a hundred years, so why is it that in these twenty years, she changed suddenly and began consuming spiritual senses from human beings? The only reason I can deduce is because of the piece of Yin Iron that was in her heart. The power from the Yin Iron was enough for her to transform into the shape of a human, similar to those water spirits. And ten years ago, someone took away the piece of Yin Iron from her heart. Because she could not absorb spiritual energy, she turned to consuming spiritual senses from humans. Was what I said correct? Also, the person who took away the Yin Iron was Wen Ruohan.

  Lan Wangji: Young Lady Wen, Twenty years ago, Wen Ruohan released the seal and removed the Yin Iron, causing your clans people to lose their lives. Now, Wen Ruohan is pursuing the other pieces of Yin Iron. Because of him, the people who will die will only increase.

  Wen Qing: Wei Wuxian, Second Young Master Lan, I cannot help you. There’s also no point in saying such things to me.

  Lan Wangji: Young Lady Wen, the Yin Iron is being suppressed in four different places. Now that three pieces have appeared, where is the last piece?

  Wen Qing: Wen Ruohan took in my younger brother and I. We owe him a debt of gratitude. I don’t know anything else, and I do not want to know. I, Wen Qing, cannot help you. Farewell.

  Jiang Cheng: Young Lady Wen, wait! Young Lady Wen. Young Lady Wen, It’s too dangerous for you to leave by yourself now. Previously, you had revealed yourself at Dafan Mountain. How will you explain yourself after returning to the Wen Clan?

  Wen Qing: Young Master Jiang, thank you for your concern. I will take the utmost care.

  Jiang Cheng: Why don’t you come with us for now, before deciding later?

  Wen Qing: I must return. My little brother is still in Nightless City.

  Jiang Cheng: But...

  Wen Qing: Young Master Jiang, you need not persuade me. I acted in Dafan Mountain to help my clans people, not to save others. Wen Ruohan needs my medical expertise, he will not give me much trouble.

  Jiang Cheng: Young Lady Wen!

  Wei Wuxian: Let her go. She has her own plans. Besides, I believe we will meet again very soon.

===============================================

  Liquor Seller: Yueyang City’s Changshan Red Liquor! Try for free! Young Sir! Try our Changshan Red Liquor from Yueyang City! Young Sir, just give it a try. No need for payment. Come and try our Yueyang City’s Changshan Red Liquor!

  Wei Wuxian: Ah! Where are you going?

  Lan Wangji: I’m searching for any cultivation clans in residence here.

  Wei Wuxian: Why are you looking for them for? Like I said, you really can’t do without me when you’re out on business, can you? There’s no way you can find out anything by looking for them.

  Lan Wangji: Then how should we inquire?

  Wei Wuxian: Of course, we should go to... that place.

  Jiang Cheng: You’re just thinking of drinking liquor!

  Wei Wuxian: Wrong! I, Wei Wuxian, have always made a clear distinction between work and my private life. Think of it clearly. This place has many customers every day. Scores of people exchange information here. If there is anything strange happening around here, it will definitely not escape their ears.

  Jiang Cheng: You can say whatever you want with that mouth of yours.

  Nie Huaisang: Hey! Brother Wei, Brother Jiang.

  Wei Wuxian: How is it, Brother Nie?

  Nie Huaisang: Meng Yao and the others have not arrived yet. Let’s find a place to rest first.

  Wei Wuxian: That’s excellent. Let’s go!

  Nie Huaisang: Let’s go.

  Wei Wuxian: Let’s go! Come along!

==========================================

  Wei Wuxian: Three flasks of liquor!

  Jiang Cheng: Have you gone mad?

  Waiter: That’s excellent, Young Sir! Once you’ve drunk our Yueyang City’s Changshan Red Liquor, you’ll be full of vigour! Only a person of your calibre could withstand it! Please wait a moment!

  Wei Wuxian: We’ll spend some money to coax some information out of him.

  Jiang Cheng: Don’t come to me when you’ve spent all your money.

  Waiter: Liquor is served! Young Sir, here’s the liquor you wanted.

  Lan Wangji: Ask your questions quickly.

  Wei Wuxian: Waiter, we’re visiting Yueyang for the first time. In Yueyang, can you tell us of anything interesting that has happened here?

  Waiter: What kind of interesting news do you want to know?

  Wei Wuxian: I’m referring to the kind of news where the weirder it is, the better. So, has anything strange happened?

  Waiter: Strange things?

  Wei Wuxian: Strange things like where can we find haunted residences, deserted graves and dismembered corpses. Or perhaps places where strange activity has happened... if anyone has had their soul eaten... things like that.

  Waiter: Young Sir, you really have some extreme tastes.

  Lan Wangji: What’s located in the south-east of Yueyang?

  Waiter: In the south-east...there is... the Chang Cultivator Clan’s residence? Young Sir, now that you’ve said it, I remembered that something strange had happened recently.

  Jiang Cheng: Speak quickly!

  Waiter: If the Young Masters follow this road out of the city and walk a few li, (one li is about half a kilometre) you will see a beautifully constructed house. That’s the Chang Clan residence.

  Nie Huaisang: Yueyang’s Chang Clan? Is that the cultivation clan that is defending this area?

  Waiter: That’s right. They’re one of the cultivation clans. Although the members of the Chang Clan are few in number, there are still more than ten of them staying in Yueyang. But I don’t know what happened recently. Every one of them has disappeared.

  Wei Wuxian: They’ve gone missing?

  Waiter: I guess so. But, I suppose it’s not either.

  Jiang Cheng: What do you mean?

  Waiter: When I said they disappeared, it’s because the ten or so members of the Chang Clan suddenly stopped being seen in Yueyang. But once the night fell, we could hear “dong, dong, dong” sounds knocking on the door of the Chang residence.

  Wei Wuxian: Knocking sounds on the door?

Waiter: That’s right. The sounds have been going on for more than ten days already. There will be loud, deafening knocking sounds every day. And in there, they’re crying and wailing, as though everyone has been trapped in there with no way out.

  Jiang Cheng: Did no one go in to have a look?

  Waiter: They did, but it was absolutely empty during the day! The knocking starts once it’s night time. Don’t all of you think that it’s scary? Look, it’s about to be night soon.

  Wei Wuxian: Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan, keep calm and focus! Lan Zhan, concentrate!

  Jiang Cheng: It’s the Yin Iron!

  Nie Huaisang: What? Something’s going to happen again?

  Wei Wuxian: Lan Zhan!

  Lan Wangji: Let’s go. To the Chang Clan.

  Nie Huaisang: I’m not going. I’ll wait here for Meng Yao.

===========================================

  Jiang Cheng: There are no knocking sounds. Maybe that waiter was talking nonsense?

  Lan Wangji: Someone used the Yin Iron here.

  Wei Wuxian: Let’s go.

  Jiang Cheng: The sounds of knocking.

  Wei Wuxian: Open! Blood is flowing like a river. The entire clan has been massacred? The bodies have turned blue. Their eyes have changed colour. There are red cracks on their necks. Before these people died, they were all turned into puppets.

[were-cheetah-stiles]

The College Years - Freshman Year (Chapter 19) -Stiles Stilinski

Author: @were-cheetah-stiles​

Title: “The Moving Out and Getting Older”

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Sarah Millin & Reader/OFC

Warnings: Cursing and angst.

Author’s Note: Anyone know what song I ripped the title from?

Summary: Stiles, Scott, Isaac and Simon help Y/N, Sarah and Hanna move out of their apartment for the summer.

Chapter Eighteen - Chapter Nineteen - Chapter Twenty

"What'd you do?" Scott yelled at Mina, horrified at her actions.

"SHE KILLED MY BROTHER, SHE DESERVES TO DIE!" Mina screamed back, holding the Queen at knifepoint.

"We don't kill, Mina." Scott tried to make her remember his rule.

"You may not, but I'm not part of your pack." Mina said, as she slit her neck and plunged the bowie knife into the Queen's heart. Mina turned back to Scott, blood splattered across her face. "Ask Zachary how many people her and Thaddeus have killed. ASK HIM! They deserve it, Scott! They deserve it." Mina had become rabid. Everyone looked around, horrified at the bloodshed.

Scott turned to Zachary, who frowned. "Thousands." He answered Scott's unspoken question. "Hanna doesn't deserve to turn into this." He added, gesturing to himself.

"You're right, bloodsucker, she doesn't." Mina ran over to Thaddeus, who was being restrained by Derek and Parrish and slit his throat, then stabbed him in the heart with the bowie knife, in one fell swoop. She was now drenched in blood. "If you were really a True Alpha, Scott, you would understand that not all supernatural creatures are worth saving."

"So they all just left?" Sarah asked, as she loaded her microwave into the storage box.

"Pretty much. They scattered after they saw Mina slaughter the Queen and Thaddeus in the middle of the street in front of the mansion." You told your roommate, catching her up on what had happened that fateful night. "I don't blame them. It was insane... and gory." You stared at the jar of olives in your hand, looking for the expiration date, as you sat in front of your open fridge, and then chucked it in the garbage.

"Where did Mina go?" Sarah asked.

"I'm pretty sure that she took her finals and went home actually." You shrugged. "Honestly, I don't want to kill, and watching her do it is definitely going to give me nightmares for the rest of time, but it ended it all and it saved Hanna so... I don't know. There was nothing we could do about her." You shook your head and went back to cleaning the food out of your apartment’s fridge.

"I can't believe that Hanna's taking her finals right now." Sarah commented. "After everything that happened."

You laughed and smiled up at Sarah, who was pulling items out of the drawers in their kitchen. "I expect nothing less of her."

Sarah laughed and agreed. “Yea, that is Han for you... It was nice what she did for Zachary, too."

"Seriously.. I know he killed Mary, and that's horrible, but he was just as much a victim as Hanna and the rest of them." You commented.

"So you're telling me that they abducted you and killed Mary?" The detective clarified, sitting across from the table Zachary in the interrogation room. "And you think that Hanna will corroborate your story?"

"Yes, sir. Because it's true. I loved Mary, we were going to move down to Cupertino together, I wouldn't have ever hurt her." Zachary said.

"Alright, stay here, I'll be right back." The detective walked into the hall to talk to the officer taking Hanna's statement. "What'd she say?"

"She said that the two guys that he described followed her home from campus, broke into her apartment and kidnapped her. She has restraint marks and bruises all over her body that corroborate that." The officer explained.

"And what'd she say about Pillit?"

"She said that she overheard them talking about trying to abduct both Zachary Pillit and Mary Henley, but Mary got wounded, and so they killed her and took Zachary, and yesterday, the kidnappers just left, so Zachary and Hanna escaped from the mansion finally. Honestly, sir, it sounds like they got lucky."

"Alright, take it to the D.A.'s office. I guess we'll be dropping the charges against Pillit." The detective directed the uniformed officer.

"So what now?" Sarah asked.

"Now, it's over, we all somehow managed to pass our classes, no one died, the vampires have left Berkeley for good, and I'm pretty sure that Stiles is going to spend the summer forcing Scott, Parrish and Lydia to create a bowie knife for the Pack." You smiled and shook your head.

"Damn right, I am, and we're going to add all this crap to the Bestiary too." Stiles poked his head into the door of the kitchen, catching the last bits of their conversation. "Scott and Isaac are back, what can they take to the storage unit next?" Stiles asked the girls.

"Um, if the TV's are all packed, those can go, and everything in the pantry and storage closet should be packed up and ready." You directed your sweaty boyfriend.

"Simon should have some boxes in my room packed too, and anything that's taped up on the dining room table." Sarah added on.

"Got it." Stiles said as he left the girls alone again.

Sarah looked at you and saw you smiling. "When are you going to see him again?" She asked.

You sighed. You didn't even want to think about your summer apart from Stiles. "The subletters are out of their apartment on August 15th, and Scott and Stiles are back in on August 16th, so Stiles will fly out on the 1st and we'll spend a few days in New York and then start driving back here after. We move back in a few days later so, yea, it should be fine though." You explained.

"Hey, did you guys put the cups away yet?" Stiles asked as he opened the door to the kitchen again, wiping sweat off of his forehead.

"Yes, but we have plastic cups just for you." You said, pointing to the red Solo cups sitting in a bag on the counter.

Stiles walked over to the sink, filled his cup up with cold water and chugged it down.

"So the one thing I'm curious about is what happens to Zachary after all of this?" Sarah asked.

"Oh, well, the university readmitted him and issued an apology letter on the website, and so he'll be back here next Fall with us to finally get his degree. But in the meantime, he's coming to Beacon Hills with us and we're going to try to train him to only drink animal blood.. reintegrate him as a functional, non-murdering member of society." Stiles answered her question. "But he's proven himself to be pretty loyal, and he's a cool guy, and he said he can fix my iPhone screen for free because of all of his Apple knowledge, so he's part of the Pack now."

"He is definitely going to keep your hands full this summer." You laughed to yourself.

"So what are you doing this summer, Stiles?" Sarah asked.

"Well, making a bowie knife, for one, and saving a young vampire, aaaand I'm also interning for the Sheriff's Department in Beacon Hills." He counted off on his fingers.

"Oh cool!"

"Not really, I'm basically on lunch runs and answering phones all day about kittens stuck in trees or some other non-emergent bullshit. But if it goes well, Scott's dad said that he would get me an internship with the San Francisco FBI field office next summer, so whatever."

"And you're with a senator this summer, Y/n?"

"Congresswoman, but yea." You answered.

"You're heading back home to Seattle for the summer, right? What are you doing?" Stiles asked Sarah.

"Nothing really, trying not to get murdered or abducted by Big Foot probably." She joked.

"Now Big Foot is a supernatural creature that I could get behind." Stiles commented with a smile.

"You nervous something will pop up in Beacon Hills this summer while you're home?" Sarah asked.

"I mean, they're still having a wendigo problem, so hopefully we can stop that and that'll be all. I'm sure it'll go by so quickly that we won't have enough time to have a supernatural disaster." Stiles glanced over at you, who was looking up at him from the floor, a look of genuine sadness on your face.

"What about the thing that that witch told you, Y/n?" Sarah asked.

You tapped your knuckles against the counter a few times and pursed your lips. "I don't know." You sighed. I'm taking all of my books from this semester with me and if something happens, I'll figure it out." You looked up at Stiles.

"Yea..." He mumbled, staring at you, anxious about the future.

Eighteen <- -> Twenty

we end Freshman year with smut (but Cat, there was no smut in this... I know :D)... see you all next chapter :D

@alexhmak @dontstopxx @iloveteenwolf24 @chivesoup @vampirepinary @parislight @surpeme-bean @snek-shit @mayahart02 @fuxkdean @teenage-dirtbagbaby @sorrynotsorrylovesome @dylrider @iknowisoundcrazy @l4life @ivette29 @5secsxofamnesia @lovelydob @vogue-sweetie @awkwarddly @therealmrshale @the-vampire-diaries-all-the-way @twentyone-souls @xmadwonderland @mrs-mitch-rapp93 @inkedaztec @sunshineystilinski @eccentricxem @lightbreaksthrough @ninja-stiles @maddie110201 @hattyohatt @stilinski-stydia-obrien @amethystmerm4id @completebandgeek

[withgentleheart]

Disney AU

because i’ve got a terrible memory i did a thing @sunshowxr @hiddenweaponuserkun

sunshowxrLIST E NTHIS DISNEY AUI NEED I T

withagentleheart I am totally prepared to create an Actual Disney Prince Rin to save Actual Disney Princess Kou from some kind of disaster/spell/whatever!Rin is definitely like, the female Flynn Rider from Tangled tbh in this verse. Calling it now.

sunshowxr!!!! yeEESS

withagentleheartI mean she is a dashing orphan who loves adventure

sunshowxr omgg

withagentleheart Though I think she'd be less into being a thief like him and probably be more of a thief like Robin Hood.

sunshowxr hell yes boiiiIIif we're gonna do a tangled au then we gotta change the part with her hair tho

withagentleheart We don't have to do one based off tangled. We can make it unique. I was just saying Rin would be a lot like Flynn (well, Eugene)

sunshowxrh mmMM TRU E

withagentleheartIf we DID do a tangled au though it could be something with his two coloured eyes and maybe magical tears instead of magical hair???

sunshowxr HOL Y SH I TYESomg what if the curse is that whoever he looks at turns to stone

withagentleheart AHHHH! Be still my Greek mythology heart.

withagentleheart What if it was just one of his eyes (the golden one) so like, he wears a patch or keeps his hair longer on that side to try and stop the curse from getting people right off the bat?

withagentleheart(I don't want kou to be As sad as medusa!!)

sunshowxr OOOHHH!!geniuS

withagentleheart^^

withagentleheart So would his parents have locked him away somewhere? Was he taken by someone wanting to use his powers? Does he still live in the castle and everyone just thinks kou doesn't like to get haircuts/ he lost an eye in a horse riding accident or something?

sunshowxr omggmaybe he was kidnapped by someone who got word of him having the powers

withagentleheartYeah! And that person could be someone who likes to collect rare things (maybe that's why they took kou) and Rin is planning on stealing some stuff from them cause she's like people's republic dying of starvation and you have so much stuff. You won't miss a few of them but the room she breaks into is the one where kou is being kept and she's like, you're not a priceless painting I can sell to feed people but no way can I let you be held against your will and swoops him away

sunshowxr!!! yeS

withagentleheart I like this. This is some good stuff man.

sunshowxr samei absolutely love it

withagentleheart Eeeeee! And like, Rin won't know he's royalty so she'll take him to her camp and try and teach him how to be a thief with her and her little band of orphans.

sunshowxr!!! omGTEACHING HIM TO HAVE FU NAND HOW TO LIVE PROPERLYbecause most of his life he's been inside!!

withagentleheart And she might be the hero here, but there will still be flower crowns She will make him flower crowns and teach him how to hunt and a bunch of stuff about nature and THE STARS

sunshowxr YAAAASSSS

withagentleheart It's gonna be epic

sunshowxr hell fuckinG YEA Halso dramatic escape from the ones that kidnapped himand an epic battle trying to run away from them

withagentleheart Ahhhhh!! I wish I wasn't in an airport right now!!!YES! Cause once kou goes missing you know some kinda henchmen will be sent after them!And Rins crew is pretty careful so it takes awhile but somehow they slip up and they're found and Rins just like "yeah, no way in hell youre taking him back!"(Girls gotta sword and she's not afraid to use it

)sunshowxr!!! yEAH SO N

withagentleheart She's a pacifist unless someone is trying to hurt someone she loves Then I'm sorry but she will kick your ass

sunshowxr mMMM YE S

withagentleheart And by that point, following conventional Disney story building Rin would have realised she loves Kou more the her life or freedom and adventure and she'd sacrifice herself for him

sunshowxrHOOO HHH B O IYESalso him accidentally showing her his eye buT SHE'S NOT AFFECTED BY IT

withagentleheart CAUSE ITS TRUE LOVE

sunshowxr YEAAAHHHH

withagentleheart This should be the next Disney movie honestly

sunshowxr TBHPETITION TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN

withagentleheart I'm first signature on the petitionIt's the Dinsey movie this world needs right now

sunshowxr YESSS

[skips a bunch of stuff not related to verse] 

sunshowxr nicEi'm good too!!also reon, the mun of hiddenweaponuserkun wanted to join the disney au!!!idk if you're talking to him atm tho :0c

withagentleheart No I love them!! They can totes join!!

sunshowxr !!! yeSwe talked a bit and saru would probably be a traitor with the dudes that try to kidnap kouand also have him jump in and rescue them when they're abt to escape and saru's just like showing them a secret exiT

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

My life story - part 14

7th GRADE - beginning of

A few weeks before 7th grade started for me, my mother moved out of the Welfare Apartments – as my father called them, and into Roxanne's father's upstairs. Roxanne moved into the basement. It was the same home he had always lived in. The same home she had married him in nearly 20 years before. So I imagine it was strange. He was getting sicker. I am not sure what he had. Cancer I think. His feet were always swelling up. Because he was a dying drunk nobody came around. He had at one time many drinking friends, but this is generally always what happens to drunks when they die. Everyone disappears, all the fair weather friends – unless they are family and they are looking for money. I think my mom was probably considering this situation as having potential for her own self.

I had always been afraid of Roxanne's father and I tried to stay away from him. The house was creepy as fuck, by the way. I have talked about ghosts off and on in this story of mine so far. I have more ghosts stories yet to unfold. But I will tell you one thing. This house had something very wrong in it. You just felt sick energy in this place. I mostly hung out in the upstairs room, and I started drawing. I had pretty much conquered the Alien Girls by this time. I had created a legendary fantasy map of their entire continent. We made all the places where our millions of girls could live. Fire people lived in the fire area. Tree people lived in the Forest Realm – ecetera ecetera. I ended up finding this big box of bad 70's porn in the closet. I remember finding this magazine that had a closeup of a vagina. I stared at it forever, trying for the life of me to figure out what I was looking at. It was like the eye of a disturbing space alien from an 80's television show, at least I thought so – until it dawned on me. The box of magazines disturbed me more than it made me curious, and I put the magazine away.

There was another room upstairs that was entirely dedicated to Dick's love for pornography I was told later from Roxanne. I never went in there. After a few weeks of this, I told my mom I didn't really want to be there anymore and I was given permission to just stay at my father's during the weekend until she figured out another place to stay. It was at the edge of town – closer to this wheat field area called Tammany. You always felt like something was angry and glaring at you. It just felt weird to be in this dying man's home with evil spirits.

It was my birthday on the 25th of August. I have always resented the date of my birth, because in my part of the world it's hot and dry and awful. And school starts generally if not on that very day – then a few days before or after. This means that most of my birthday presents are actually school supplies. I don't know how many pencil holders I have unwrapped. How many rulers, eraser sets. It's a little disappointing, especially when you get older and you become privy to the shtick.

On the 25 of August, 2001, in a rare turn of events, I was invited to Samantha's home for a sleepover. This did not happen often. Sam didn't really like me, so I didn't get invited over that often. Also, her father just didn't give Sam any breaks at all. He was an alcoholic lawyer (strangely, Dick whom I mentioned above had also been an alcoholic lawyer), and her life was micromanaged. Her grandma lived in another part of the trailer court, and she had nothing better to do than to call Sam from across the way every thirty minutes to make sure Sam was NEVER wasting time. Her father made her work in the garden – they had a rather large garden you could see from the highway, and with that money what he didn't pocket he put in her college savings. Samantha, as the only girl in the house was everyone's maid. She was to keep her room absolutely spotless. Her father's room and her brother's room as well. Her grades had to be 95% or higher or she was grounded. Almost everything she did would cause her to be grounded. There were times when she was staying the night at Sarah's and her father would randomly call and be yelling at her over the phone and make her come home. Her life was so unfair. I know my dad was abusive towards me at times. But honestly, I probably suffered from a lack of structure more than I did an overabundance of authoritarian rigidity.

So it was unusual that I was invited for several reasons, but I was. And it was my birthday so I thought, 'why not?' I was warned that Samantha's fourth cousin – Katie was visiting. Katie, as I was told, was actually in the class above me, but I had never paid great attention to the kids in the class above. I was warned that Katie would be rough with me. And she was. As soon as I got there, she said things like “Who the fuck are you?”. She was very tomboyish. She didn't say things in the valley girl snotty way you might imagine, but more like a trucker who you had pissed off in some dive bar somewhere between here and South Dakota. When we were playing Pokemon Stadium 2, and I was winning at Chansey Egg Catching – or whathaveyou (of course I would win because I had dedicated the previous two years to Pokemon), she called me a bitch and threw the controller at me. I didn't take this all that personal. I was told that this was just the way that Katie was towards new people. But once she liked me, she would be a loyal friend. I shrugged the whole thing off. I wasn't particularly interested in a friend like that.

Sarah-Mae really wanted me to make a good 'cool' impression of myself in our new positions as 7th graders. 7th graders are always given kind of an unfair time. I imagine this is just as true in the 40's as it is today. Everyone scoffs at them. But I mean, at some point everyone has to be a 7th grader, and there has to be a bottom to the school. Not everyone can be a senior. I probably made a terrible impression though, because my mom had these hippie tunics with wild hippie designs on them. I really liked them. I remember being so excited when my mom was packing and she gave them to me. I had always looked at them in her clothing drawer, and always thought they were really cool. They were comfortable, and they actually fit me. And they had all those colors. The rest of the school made a big deal about them though. I guess they bordered on absurd, and each day I wore them Sarah and Samantha made sure I knew that I looked really bad. Peer pressure finally had the best of me, and I put them away for good after a few months.

At the peak of drawing Alien Girls, Sarah and I decided as a group to stop drawing them. The thing was, their eyes were so large and on the side of their heads. You got the very good impression that their eyes swooped around the other side of their skulls, in behind their hair. There was no clear indication that they had a real nose and their mouths were super low. They had no cheekbones. They were designed from the imagination of an eight year old girl, and it would be hard to improve as an artist if I carried on with them. On one angle, they were drawable. But you could never make them look reasonably okay from the side, or at any other angle. Their anatomy left more questions than answers.

So, Sarah had been watching Card Captures Sakura, and I got really intrigued by anime, so we started drawing that instead. My first comic idea was pretty lousy. It was the typical three school girl deal – based on me Sarah and Samantha kind of, where they all get swept into a magic place after school and had to fight evil monsters. I was extremely jealous of Sarah's comic. On one hand, I had always been very good at designing clothes and pretty faces. My first story was no good, but overall, my story lines were more compelling and my character profiles were better developed. But Sarah had a much better concept of drawing movement and facial expressions. She could draw wings, and she could do interesting shadowing. There was something about her art itself that gave it more life than my art did. I grew pretty jealous of her art actually, and this feeling of inferiority set me back quite a few years in the long run. We kept drawing together though.

Sarah's mom moved into a new bigger home. It was an old home, not as old as mine was, but pretty old. It was at the top of the hill that I lived at the bottom of. It was next door to where that old man, Bucky used to live. The back patio looked down over a steep ledge that led one hundred feet more or less straight down  to the main road towards the end of town. You could also see the Junior/Senior high school from there (they were one in the same since the community was small). There were rumors that a native American girl had fallen to her death on that ledge in the 20's, and when I looked out the window and really thought about it, I worried that something might erode under the house and cause the building to topple down the cliff.

The house had been the Browns house, so it was a bit gross at first and had to be cleaned up a fair amount. Carol had always been good at renovating places though, so she got it cleaned up quite nicely. My niece, Sagen's uncle on her father's side had killed himself in the front yard we were told back in the 80's. So the place carried with it a sense of disaster. Most of the time it was peaceful, but there were some strange things that happened later on that I will get to at a later time.

Sarah's mom also got a new steady boyfriend. His name was Jim. He was this quiet nervous little man with a round face and a Santaesque beard. Like Carol, he was really into old antiques. He lived in this little hut thing that was part of a brick building in the back streets of Kendrick. He fixed cars to get by in a garage next to his hut. He also did some kind of work out in the woods, but I was never sure what that was. His dream was to someday go prospecting and find a rare precious Idaho gem that would set him up for life. He collected lots of old stuff. He was borderline a hoarder. There was old things all over the outside and inside of his little building. His claim to fame was that he had at one time owned one of the very first Indian motorcycles, and he had sold it to Jay Leno. So Jay Leno had come to our little town. He moved in with Carol when they got together, but he still kept his little hut.

My dad around this time started worrying that I was spending too much time around a 'liberal' adult. My father being a republican, was not too pleased with the fact that Carol was a liberal. In his mind, he seemed to think that she actually had the will and want to indoctrinate me to her political beliefs. My dad listened to conservative talk radio all day. I think in his mind, the world was getting very black and white. In all reality, Carol really wasn't the kind of person to even consider it important. And if she had any will or want to indoctrinate me with anything, I believe she would have indoctrinated me with the common sense not to stomp and speak loudly after she went to bed around 7:00 pm – insanely early, or to wipe my feet before I came into the house. Or perhaps to put my dishes away.

It was the fall of 2001 that my dad got our first computer. Up to that point, I hadn't really known what the internet was. I had heard that it existed, but given that what interested me was mostly doing things in the real world, what I could put on paper or read off one, I didn't see the point in it. My father was given a used computer from my Uncle Bob, who, given his position as a regional super attendant's super attendant, was well familiar with computers and wanted to be able to communicate with our family more. So he gave us his old Window's 98.

My dad actually went to these really corny classes, with the corniest how-to manuals on how to use the computer in the most basic of ways. We went to a local woman's house who facilitated the classes. We actually had to be told that the thing that we used to move the cursor on the screen was called a 'Mouse'. I remember as they told us this, I looked out the window, and there was a cat in their drive way torturing and slowly eating a you guessed it – a mouse. So from then on, I have always associated the computer mouse with that tortured mouse I saw that fall evening of 2001. I had used computers and all, I just hadn't known that the computer mouse was called that.

At first all I really understood was my father's email address. So I figured that you sent letters to someone every single day – that must be something you should do. I started writing my Aunt Sylvia. I didn't really know her at all. I decided to make up this fantasy tale about these brothers and sisters who all had these magic powers and had to get back their places as princes and princesses. She really liked it, and I think this was probably because, though I didn't know it at the time, my aunt Sylvia was obsessed with fairies. Her job was to design those kind of corny fairies that sparkle that people used to put on their websites or personal pages. I also looked at every single Pokemon site I could find. I distinctly remember this website with terrible graphics. You basically just put Pokemon on a frying pan and fried them up. It wasn't really graphic, and it looked more like colors smooshing together. I also found every cheat for my gameboy, and I essentially ruined the game for myself by having too much power.

Samantha had started going to chat rooms to talk to boys. I didn't see the appeal to this at all, but since Samantha was doing it, and Sarah had done it a few times, I decided to do it too. I was the absolute worst. I went into these chat rooms, and I didn't want to tell them I was a twelve year old, so I lied about my age. When they asked me questions, I told them really dumb stupid things. I generally didn't do anything productive or say anything meaningful. I more often than not, would go into a chatroom and do something like say the same stupid word over and over again till everyone in the chatroom was gone. I don't know why I did this really. Once again, power trip I guess.

When I witnessed the first pop-up telling me that we had won a million dollars, I believed it. I remember feeling shocked and almost frightened. I got up and told my father the news. He laughed and let me know that it was just an ad. Again, I also believed the Nigerian Queen who needed to funnel money into the US or something like that. I wholeheartedly believed that queen was in need of help and we would be rewarded handsomely for our troubles. I think my father wanted to believe it, but in the end knew better. I also immediately took to MS Paint. I started drawing pictures to explain my entire day. Usually just three or four moments of the day that really stood out. Like, I forgot to do my homework, or I tripped and fell. I eventually had hundreds of pictures illustrating my life. When we had gotten our first virus, my father deleted all my pictures, foolishly believing that having too many paint pictures saved was somehow the cause of it.

One of the problems I sort of caused with these pictures was – I think I must have had a lot of pent up anger and resentments for Sarah and Samantha by this time. For years, they had told me I was ugly, stupid, annoying. I had been told to shut up I don't know how many times. I felt embarrassed by my very existence. I always felt there was something wrong with me. I distinctly remember Sarah telling someone else that I was more of her dog than someone she would consider a friend. I just carried this ball of self loathing and anger with me at all times. When I was given the power over the computer, I used it to draw ugly versions of both of them. I drew Sarah with a point banana nose and tiny little slanted eyes. I highlighted the fact that she had zits like me, only her's were tiny and colorless, but I made sure that the illustration I did of her came with a magnifying glass to highlight this underlooked fact. With Samantha, I made her eyes bulgy and boyish. I made it so her brain only thought of math. Her face was spotted like a pizza. I drew one of myself – ugly as well, with chubby cheeks, frizzy hair, double chin, stupid big lips and zits as well. These pictures were mean, but I took strange joy in making them. I showed them to Sarah and Samantha. They were upset. I think Sarah almost cried. I think these pictures probably reflected a certain resentment that I wasn't even conscious of at the time. I didn't understand why they were upset. I had gotten very used to their insults. It seemed strange to me that when I found my own way of doing it back to them. I didn't have to say mean things. I could just draw it instead.

My very favorite thing to do though, was to look at anime pictures on a website that doesn't exist anymore. I can't really imagine it now, though I am on tumblr all day sometimes so I should probably not be that shocked with myself, but I honestly loved nothing better than to stare at the same twenty or so anime pictures all day. I somehow didn't tire of this at all. I remember also that I fell in love with the first – and aside from Jack the Skeleton when I was very young- only complete and total cartoon character. It was the main male protagonist on a show called Escaflowne. I never watched the show till I was way older, and I was disappointed and annoyed at the animation when I finally did see it – couldn't even finish the first episode, but for some reason just from seeing some fanart I was totally into this dude – don't know his name now and don't care to look it up. Now, as an adult, and as someone who can draw anime a little bit but doesn't want to anymore, I try very hard not to judge all the young nerdy teenagers who are in love with anime characters and go about drawing them in romantic settings all the time. I try very hard not to judge, but I generally fail and I judge them anyway. However, I have had a few times in my life when I got really interested in anime. I think those spells are over for me now – we'll see. I loved these anime pictures so much that I sometimes would check out and go home early on days when my father wasn't home just so I could have extra time to look at these pictures.

In the eyes of some, this was the beginning of the end for me. I have been addicted to the internet ever since. I found an escape ladder out of reality, into a world with unlimited information and inspiration, where the painful biting reality had lost it's edge, and I was heightened somehow into an ethereal version of the world that I could make for myself. A place where I could express myself freely, or find just about anything I needed, and somewhere that I could avoid feeling anxious. I could be a new person, or a better version of myself. I would go on and off with having access to the internet throughout my young life, but ultimately, I became an addict the second I figured this all out.

A week before our classes started at the new big school, we went to this orientation. We had this freakish man at the time as our principal. I am not the only person who thought he bore a striking resemblance to Hitler. It was hard at the time for most people not to see the comparisons. He had the same mustache. He was twitchy and tried very hard to be commanding, though it came off weak and stiff. He would follow up with nervous laughter. Much thinner than Hitler, and less angry. He wasn't Hitler. That isn't a fair analogy. It is almost never fair to compare someone to Hitler. His name was Mr. Hendrickson. Naturally, he didn't grow too fond of me over the years.

I had to give up band. I really loved playing the bass drum. Was I great? No. I was okay. I had played the instrument for two or three years. Samantha was the snare drummer, and she actually was very talented. And it was the one thing that Samantha and I had in common. She ordinarily didn't like me, but when we played drums in the back of our band practices every other day, we were basically friends just as we had been as kindergartners. I had wanted to stay in high school band, but there was already a bass drummer and he had seniority over me. Plus, he actually was talented. I was not particularly talented. Samantha was accepted as a drummer, and Sarah – who had always played the clarinet stayed in band. They tried to put me in choir – but I protested, which was understandable since the very thought of singing in a group was horrendously embarrassing to me. The eventually put me in a Study Skills class.

Study Skills was run by a very tall square headed, plain looking man who had this threatening vibe, but was probably the calmest and most boring fellow who ever worked in that school. Mr. Forestman. The only thing that seemed to get his goat was when you called him Mr. Foreskin. He was actually just the basketball coach. He just overlooked the Study Skills class as an extra detail. We were given planners. All we had to do was demonstrate that we used our daily planners and the rest of the time we could use to do homework or to chat. It was in this class that I got to learn the more juicier details of my classmate's lives, and the lives of different kids in the school in general. There was a group of boys, and a group of girls. I sat alone at the weird person table in the corner by myself and drew. He didn't like it when I drew, and would tell me to stop sometimes. I am pretty sure I didn't use any of this time wisely. I would mostly listen to them gossip. I had no idea my classmates were having so much drama. I had been caught so deep in my own Alien Girl – anime girl land that I didn't realize.

One day this crazy fellow walked into the Study Skills class. I had heard him being talked about for years of my life. Everyone said he was crazy. And yet, I had never actually taken a look at him before – at least not consciously. I wasn't even sure if he was a student or not at first. His name as people called him was Double D. His real name was Daniel. But almost nobody but a few of the more sensitive teachers called him by his real name. He had facial expressions that were always shocking. His mouth stretched across the entirety of his face. His eyes were giant and bulged and black. He never seemed to blink. He spoke in a loud overly pronouncing voice. It was the voice that someone would make if they were to imitate a geek, only more extreme. He used phrases you might hear an elderly person make. Like, you knew the phrase, but nobody in high school would ever describe something in that way. Every single thing about this guy was weird. His movements seemed unnatural. He also wore women's matching sweaters and sweater pants. And he had a cape. He wore a cape half the time he came to school. He also had one of those small cd holders you put on the mirror holder thing in your car. He wore it on his hand like a super hero. And when he went through the hall way between classes, it was really something else.

He came in this one day, and I could barely believe this guy existed. He claimed that he was psychic, and had telekinetic powers. He told people this daily. He also said he was a karate master. And he was a super saiyan. He really believed these things were true. It was weird seeing this guy. Of course I judged him, but he was alarming and I didn't feel the need to give him problems. There were plenty of people in the school and in the town who liked to pick on him. It was strange because up to that point I had been somewhat certain that I was the biggest freak. Apparently, compared to some I was normal, painfully. Double D came in when the teacher wasn't there this early evening. He challenged a boy in my class, Corey to 'BE A MAN' and to fight him to the death. Double D warned him in all loud seriousness with not a tinge of humor in his facial expression that he could explode Corey's mind. I remember Double D went on to do some kind of strange air kick. It was truly a sight to behold. Corey ducked Double D's strange movements laughing boyishly and hysterically. All the boys were laughing. The cheerleader girls in the other corner laughed nervously. I just stared on in disbelief. This was my first, and not last introduction to Double D in the years as a high school student. So this guy was the school freak. I would always be one of the weird ones for sure, but this guy would always outdo me.

I didn't really know how to feel about high school. Technically it was still junior high. And we were still taking a few classes at the elementary school for some reason. But since the junior and senior high schools were one in the same, it was strange to be in this new atmosphere. The teachers seemed a little more lenient. Teachers in the elementary school were a bit caught up in their positions. You got the feeling that they didn't trust you to be able to tie your own shoes. They were very controlling. If they had to deal with the older kids in this climate, they would have lost their minds. Between classes was pure chaos. There was one hallway and everyone's lockers were on it. For someone with the anxiety that I had, it was hard for me to even think straight. It was basically like being dunked into freezing water every forty-five minutes. I was always in a state of shock. The fear I felt when I at first could not find my locker was unbearable. It was hard to believe that I had made it this far. Roxanne and Maria had gone to school here. But it always had seemed to me that I would always be a child, and the day where I too was to do my time as a high school student would never come. Strange too, the seniors were all enormous to me still. The hallway smelled like football player sweat – quite unpleasant, random smells of perfume, books, the smell from the lunch room of the cheapest food imaginable, generally something brown in a big vat with gravy on it. And underneath that, for me at least, I could smell anticipation, fear, sex, chaos, the thoughts of thousands of people who had come before – not just the students that were there then. I was overwhelmed. It was all too much. Too many people. I figured it out somehow, almost.

The one thing I did like about this new high school thing was after school every Thursday, from 3:15 when the school bell rang till somewhere between five and seven – we got to go to Art Club. Art Club was ran by a woman named Ms. Fiske. She never really liked me all that much, but she seemed okay with me. She really enjoyed Sarah more. This didn't actually bother me, despite my inferiority issues at the time. Mrs. Fiske was extremely unstable. You could tell by the way she laughed. Her moods were up or down. She would get mad and she would frantically begin talking in a way that nobody could understand. Once a month she would scream and cry at us when we took art class. But Art Club was totally worth it. You could never really hate Ms. Fiske because she had set up a place where I sort of belonged. She was more than generous with her supplies as well. We never had to pay for anything. She brought cookies and soda, and we would listen to music and make art. The canvases were free, the paint was free, the freaking clay was free, and there was a kiln we could use and that was also free. Sarah and I would go every Thursday. Usually it would be about five to ten other students. Generally they were either older art nerds, or maybe even a football player or a girl's basketball girl who had a secret artsy side.

It was one thing I really did enjoy. Several times in my years at that school, the principals and teachers tried to ban me from being able to go to Art Club, but they never succeeded. For this, I really didn't care if Ms. Fiske secretly didn't like me or get my art. I mean, I think it bothered me later on a little. But it was never that bad because she made Art Club happen.

To be continued. And if you are interested in this and want to catch up, here are the other parts i have written thus far.

PART 13 - http://tinyurl.com/yalanq9s

PART 12 - http://tinyurl.com/yc79mw94

PART 11 - http://tinyurl.com/yc9qhj84

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw  

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g

PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

[tpanan]

My Friday Daily Blessings

November 17, 2017

Be still quiet your heart and mind, the LORD is here, loving you talking to you...........

Memorial of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious (Catholic Observance)

Lectionary: 495

First Reading: Wis 13:1-9

All men were by nature foolish who were inignorance of God, and who from the good things seen did not succeed in knowing him who is, and from studying the works did not discern the artisan; But either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circuit of the stars, or the mighty water, or the luminaries of heaven, the governors of the world, they considered gods. Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods, let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these; for the original source of beauty fashioned them. Or if they were struck by their might and energy, let them from these things realize how much more powerful is he who made them. For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen. But yet, for these the blame is less; For they indeed have gone astray perhaps, though they seek God and wish to find him. For they search busily among his works, but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair. But again, not even these are pardonable. For if they so far succeeded in knowledge that they could speculate about the world,how did they not more quickly find its Lord?

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 19:2-3, 4-5ab

"The heavens proclaim the glory of GOD."

Verse before the Gospel: Luke 21:28

Alelluia, Alelluia

"Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand."

Alelluia, Alelluia

Gospel Reading: Luke 17:26-37

Jesus said to his disciples: "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all.

So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind.

Remember the wife of Lot. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.

I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left.

And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left." They said to him in reply, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather."

**Meditation:

What can nature teach us about the return of the Lord Jesus on the day of final judgment at the end of the world? Jesus quoted a familiar proverb to his audience: Where the body is, there the eagles (or vultures) will be gathered together (Luke 17:37). Eagles, like vultures, are attracted to carrion - the carcass of dying or dead animals. The Book of Job describes the eagle spying out its prey from afar (Job 39:29). The eagles swoop to catch their prey when the conditions are right, especially if the prey is exposed and vulnerable to a surprise attack. Severely weakened or dying prey have no chance of warding off forces that can destroy and kill.

Sign of the gathering eagles and vultures What's the point of this analogy? When the day of God's final judgment and vindication comes, the scene and location will be obvious to all.  Those who have rejected God and refused to believe in his Son the Lord Jesus Christ will perish on the day of judgment - just like the beasts of prey who are cut off from the land of the living. The Lord Jesus will vindicate those who have believed in him and he will reward them with everlasting joy and happiness in his kingdom. The return of the Lord Jesus at the close of this present age is certain, but the time is unknown. The Day of the Lord's judgment and final verdict will come swiftly and unexpectedly. Jesus warns his listeners to not be caught off guard when that day arrives. It will surely come in God's good time!

Those who accept Jesus Christ as Lord will enter his everlasting kingdom What does Jesus mean when he says that one person will be taken and another left? God judges everyone individually on how each person has  responded to his gracious mercy and invitation to accept his Son as Lord and Ruler over all. The Lord Jesus gives us personal freedom to accept or reject him as Lord and Savior. We are free to live as citizens of his kingdom or to choose for the kingdom of darkness that stands in opposition to God and his rule. No one can pass off their personal responsibility to someone else - no matter how close the ties may be in this present life. We will each have to give an account to the Judge of All for how we have accepted or rejected him as our lord and savior.

The good news is that the Lord Jesus freely offers each one of us the grace, strength, and help we need to turn to him to receive pardon for our sins and healing for our minds and hearts so we can embrace his good will for our lives and find the way to our heavenly Father's home. The Lord Jesus gives us his Holy Spirit to lead and guide us in his wisdom, truth, and love. The Holy Spirit helps us to turn away from sin and rebellion and to embrace God's way of love, righteousness (moral goodness), and holiness.

The Lord's warning of judgment is motivated by his love for each one of us. He does not desire the death of any one (Ezekiel 18:23 and 33:11). He bids us to choose for life rather than death - for goodness and righteousness rather than sin and evil (Deuteronomy 30:19). The Lord's 'Day of Judgment' will bring terror and disaster for those who have not heeded his warning or who have refused his gracious help. The Day of the Lord's Return will be a cause for great joy and vindication for those who have put their trust in the Lord Jesus.

The choices we make now - for or against Christ - will either lead us on the path of life or death - heaven or hell God's Day of Judgment is a cause for great joy and reward for those who have waited with patient hope and longing for the Lord Jesus to return again in glory and power. The people in Noah's time ignored the Lord's warning of judgment because their hearts were hardened and they were rebellious towards God. When the great flood swept over the earth, they missed the boat, literally! Whose boat or safety net are you staking your life on - the world's life-raft to short-lived success and happiness or to the indestructible Ark of God whose foundation is Jesus Christ and his victorious cross? Those whose hope is firmly anchored in heaven will not be disappointed when the day of final judgment comes. They rejoice even now that their names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20) and they look with eager longing for the day when they will see the Lord face to face (Revelation 22:4). Is your hope firmly placed in the Lord Jesus and his return in glory?

**Prayer

"Lord Jesus Christ, I place all my hope in you because you have redeemed the world by your death on the cross and by your victory over the grave. Help me to never lose sight of the goal of heaven that I may live each day in joyful anticipation of your return in glory."

Sources:

Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

**Meditations may be freely reprinted for non-commercial use. Cite copyright & source: www.dailyscripture.net author Don Schwager© 2015 Servants of the Word

[koolforlife]

Make A Change

Lately if you’re paying attention to the world’s current events, I know your saying to yourself, “What's going on with the world?” Natural disasters are happening all over the world. Young kids are dying and bringing harm to themselves at an alarming rate. We are probably more disconnected as a human race then we have ever been before. The United States is being ran by a reality TV show star that is not qualified to be the President of the United States. Donald Trump is a racist and all the people he surrounds himself with are racist too. Instead of using his power to make this country a place where all people can thrive and live out their dreams, he is destroying dreams and has no idea what he is doing as a president. We also have a president that doesn't respect women. So, if your hoping that the government or the state is going to save you and swoop in and save the day, it's not going to happen. The people must remember that we are the ones with the power. The only reason why we don't have access to that power because we are disconnected as a human race. We don't look out for each other anymore. We don't view an injustice to one of us as an injustice to all of us. It has gotten to the point where we don't even look out for the youth anymore. We have a generation of kids that are figuring things out on their own. I write this blog because I know that it's easy to let fear, worry and stress into your mind, all you have to do is turn on the news. Everybody wants to identify the problem but nobody wants to come up with solutions. To be honest I think things will only get worse until we start treating one another like family. Let's stop letting things like racism, class and hate disconnect us.

The saying goes that change comes on the brink of disaster. Well I think that time is now. Global warming is real and if we don't start taking care of our planet and each other the world might decide to get rid of humanity. Imagine if natural disasters started happening all over the world at the same time. Imagine if Mother Nature decided to destroy everything we hold dear because we didn't want to take care of our planet or each other. We have been sold this story of paradise and heaven when we die. Why would our Creator let us into heaven if we can't take care of our planet or each other? The same that's above is the same that's below. So, if you can't create a mindset and a state of paradise on earth you won't be able to do it in heaven either. Let's start living in the moment, taking care of our family and not just our extended family. Let's start looking out for everyone. The best way to receive is to give. We were put on this planet to love one another and with together as a human race. The whole energy of this entire planet would change instantly if 7 billion people came together through unconditional love. Imagine a world where people loved and looked out for each other. Nobody was selfish and everybody shared what they have. Imagine a world where people didn't kill people or animals. Imagine a world where we respected and honored one another. Doesn't that world I just described sound like some type of paradise, and you don’t have to die to create it. You just have to change your mindset. Find love in everything, even the things that hurt you. 

We were not created as a human race to act like savage animals that don't care about each other or the planet that we all inhabit. We were not created to hate each other and disconnect ourselves from each other based on systems that were implemented to control us. When a person is hurt, don't you get this natural feeling to just want to help? When someone is hungry and you have access to food don't you want to feed them? When a friend is getting bullied and you can help defend them don't you want to help them? I say all this to say, that it's something natural about helping another person. Hate, and wanting to do something negative to someone seems more like a learned characteristic. Look around and see how the world looks when we let religion, skin color and money control how we treat one another. There is going to come a day where we are all going to have to come together to change this world for the better.

Hate is destroying the world, love will save it.

Control what comes in and out of your mind, if you don't somebody else will control if for you.

Practice meditation, learn how to quiet your thoughts.

Surround yourself around positive people that do positive things.

Believe in yourself and also believe in others.

Keep unconditional love in your heart and remember that you can do anything you put your mind to.

Look adversity in the face with a smile.

Play your part in changing the world for the better.

Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better so don't let the current state of this world worry you. Just make sure you remember that life was given so that you live out your dreams and you treat every day like an adventure. Our spirits live forever; so. live to your fullest potential, find your greatness and show it to the world. Live as if you never heard the world regret, be genuine to yourself and be kind to others.

I love you all, stay KoolforLife and we will talk soon my friends.