#I am catching the face the raven parallels! they have been caught !

[grandadtwelve]

watching sarah grow increasingly reckless, become desensitized to pain and suffering, watching the doctor grow increasingly protective over her to the point of toeing his usual moral line, referring to her as his best friend and explicitly telling her how much he worries and cares for her

[yandere-wishes]

In The Streets Of London (Twisted Wonderland X Reader

Victorian Au)

Part one of a series, let me know in the comments who you think the killer is!

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Ghastly murder in the east end dreadful mutilation of a woman by the man known as the leather apron

"He killed another woman last night, father! How can you sit so idly by!"

The onyx skirt brushed up against the young girl's legs as she passed to and for across the room. Her leather gloves racked her (h/c) locks from her face, pulling them back in hopes that the thuggish feeling would simulate her frozen brain. "It a fifteen puzzle (1) even for Scotland yard!" she bellowed.  "Than what in the devil's name do you think you and I could do about it, darling!" Her father turned to her, his grey eyes caging annoyance and misery. His tone was right above irritated...her father was never a delight went he became irritated. Divus Crewel, known to most of England as the finest mind in chemistry and alchemy in the 19th century. His daughter (y/n) Crewel was allegedly following in her father's footsteps in hopes of one day becoming a female fetal in chemistry herself. Of course, that's what all of England thought, the truth of the matter was rather was quite different. (y/n) harbored no interest in becoming a chemist nor an alchemist, the young lady found her interest in a more macabre filed, the field of forensic medicine to be precise. Prying secrets from the dead had become her little habit and due to Lord Crewel's rather negligent parenting, the girl had begun to study her precious cadavers full time, taking classes three times a weak in Night Raven College's medical and criminal department. For her it was exhilarating! Having to dress as a boy and sneak her way around the dreary campus was just as exciting as tea parties at the queen's palace were for "regular ladies". 

"I bet he wore a Gigglemug (2) as he slashed their throats open!" (Y/n) the loud voice reverberated off the walls, it's heavy decibels hitting Divus right on his two-colored head. 

"Love of my life, sunshine to my trepidation, NO ONE CARES! God dame that stupid sociopath, he's making my life miserable by occupying your grisly mind!"

(Y/N) ignored her father's outburst, her short heels clicking across the wooden floor of her father's laboratory. Her brain tried to envisage the infamous East-End to no avail, all she could picture was filth littered grey streets with a woman's corpse lying in her own ichor. Even the killer was hard to presume, there was no bloody way in hell that that monster could be human! No living being could do such heinous deeds, it must have been the devil himself! No no, such thought where for the uneducated, the people with simple minds, no she...she was a lords daughter one who was enrolled -illegally mind you- at one of the most prestigious schools in all of London--NO England! If anyone could find his monster it was going to be HER!

"I wonder if he'll--" A loud tapping came from the closed wooden door on the far end of the underground chamber. "Oh thank the all mighty himself!" Divus professed, lifting his occupied arms to the invisible sky, spilling some magenta liquid onto the table. Carelessly tossing the beacons aside, Divus rushed to the door a chip little prep in his usually professional step. Swinging the door open with as much force as a child ripping Christmas gifts.

(Y/n) remained behind, slumping tiredly in her father's chair. Her untrained eyes scanned the chemicals boredly, wishing that the half-rat (3)  liquids would turn into tiny figurines, performing the event of the night of the crime. However, her bewildered thoughts where shortly heckled, by a pleasant young voice along with the ringing of her father's vexatious smoky voice. "Ah, Commander Ashengrotto and Chief Superintendent Shroud what do we own the pleasure of this unexpected visit." from the distance (y/n) heard some shuffling, abruptly jumping to her feet and straightening out her skirts. Her eyes followed the three men that trailed down the steps. Her father walking past to stand by her as Commander Ashengrotto and Chief Superintendent Shroud stood in front of her. Or in the case of Mr. Shroud, attempted to hide behind his superior officer. The grey-haired man, bowed politely, lightly taking hold of miss Crewel's hand in his leather-bound one and placing a fleet, feather-like kiss atop the back of her hand. Azul glared at Idia, the former's elbow digging sharply into the later’s side. Hesitantly Idia, folded into a clumsy half-bow before straightening back up, during the whole endeavor one could clearly hear the loud cracking over every bone in this spine. "Well..." Your father started, clearly annoyed at the murky silence. "out with it lads, what are you lot doing here?" Azul's ocean colored eyes stared as straight as an arrow into Divus's grey ones. "Professor Crewel, it may be best to send your lovely daughter out? I wouldn't want to taint her stunning innocence with this ghastly talk about gore and murder." His eyes spared a gaze at you, roaming over your figure with an amused glint. Before your father could answer you proclaimed loudly."I, my dear Ashengrotto, am not as innocent as you fancy me! I will choose to stay IF I SO DESIRE." From the side, you could practically feel your father roll his eyes. "Allow her to stay" Your father mumbled tiredly "The sudden shock of it all may knock some sense into this senseless girl." "As you wish" with that the detective became talking:

"We have reason to believe that...this Ripper or well "Leather Apron" as the news has begun to call him, is, in fact, one of the nobl--" (Y/n) gasped, her eyes widening with excitement. "REALLY! He could be living right in our neighborhood!!" A forceful smack hitting her head, it's vibrations sending waves of pain through her body. "Try and bot sound so excited darling daughter of mine. My apologies Commander, care to continue?" Azul coughed into his fist, clearly killing a laugh. "Yes, quite alright my lord. As I said we so believe the murder to be of noble heritage. As you may know, the Al-Asims are hosting a Nobleman's ball tomorrow evening I trust you have been invited." He paused in his speech looking from (y/n) to her father. Divus gave a court nod in the inspector's direction becoming him to continue. "Perfect! Well since you shall be in attendance I would greatly love for your daughter to ...how do I word this...Play bait?"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT" Mr. Crewel screeched, "I shall not have my daughter mafficking (4) in the streets as a wannabe prostitute to help capture a deranged and rather vexing murderer!" Azul took a step backward, his back pressing smugly against Idia's chest. Even (y/n) sted half an inch away from her father. "Professor Crewel please relax, I simply mean that during the party (y/n) could slip out with an officer, who will be heavily armed. This may cause the ripper, who appears to have a warped sense of justice, to follow them. Once he decides to attack the officer will shoot at him and that will be the end of the Ripper's reign of terror over London." Divus rolled his eyes "marvelous plan detective...except what if the ripper chooses to not attack then? And go after my daughter once she is alone, asleep in her bed! Or outside shopping with some absent-minded servants? What then?" Azul lips knitted into a tight frown, his voice dying in this throat long before it reached his tongue. The professor did make a compelling point. 

"Than we will send heavily armed guards around both you and your daughter until the ripper is caught." A dead, monotone voice cracked. For the first time since walking into the house either of the residences had heard Idia speak. His voice was so brittle and fragile that (y/n) though it would visibly shatter if any of them dared to respond. Even her father seemed too nervous to speak...an odd this for such a powerful man. It was Azul, who decided to speak first, unlike before his voice was low and decile no longer laced with that regal elegance. "Yes...as my partner just...um just...mentioned. If our plan does -by some unearthly phenomena- fail we will have guards circling you and your daughter until the ripper is caught and brought to justice."

It took the longest while before your father agreed. Of course, he placed some very strict requirements before officially "sending you to your doom" as he worded it. As the two detectives left you could hear the Shroud boy mumbling a string of "do I also have to attend?"

and "can't you catch him yourself?" as he left the house. "Peculiar man ain't her, father?" Your eyes tuned to your only parent, "yes yes, quite bizarre." His gloved fingers wrapped tightly around your wrist dragging you along up the stairs. "We have much to do if we are to prepare you for the Al-Asim ball"

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There was an unspoken tension amongst presumably every guest in the ballroom. all that swayed and danced, flaunting their pricey dresses and custom made suits, harbored a form of dark secret within their souls...no one in England was innocent but tonight, just for tonight there was one man who's guilt outshined the rest, one man how's hands where permanently panted with the blood of three innocent women.

(Y/n)'s back was pressed against the cool tiles of a stark white pillar. Her eyes darted from person to person, trying to memorize as much as possible about all of them. "Shouldn't a young noblewoman such as yourself be out there dancing?" ripples of dread and annoyance bounced inside the spoiled girl, who dared to speak to her in such a manner? She turned furiously ready to shout at whoever had just talked, only to stop short when she came face to face with the tall bored-looking butler holding a tray of drink parallel to his head. His grey eyes seemed to hold a dreaded looking, eyeing her curiously. Was this the officer who was meant to take her outside? Figuring it best to play (y/n) puffed up her chest a bit and leaned in close. "Do you have the money?" she whispered. The butler's face remained stoic, he simply sighed and muttered something to himself. "Madam if I had any money I certainly wouldn't be wasting in on the likes of you." He plucked a sparkling drink from the tray and reached to pass it to the young women. "Feather more I would highly recommend having a more subtle way of distinguishing your clients if you aren't too careful rumors may spiral and that chap...what was his name Jack the apron? May come to get you in your sleep." (Y/n)'s eyes widen as she gripped the drink 'It was him!' she thought, he was the killer! Before the girl could phantom out a reply the butler was already well on his way. She had to find someone! To tell someone quickly! She turned frantically trying to find her father or one of the detectives. "Hey, girly..." A low voice echoed from the shadows under the stairs. That must be the detective (y/n) thought to herself, she lifted her skirts and quickly marched over to the darkness hiding the owner of the voice. 

Something grabbed (y/n)'s wrist, it was practically cutting off circulation. "W-who are you?" the girl struggled to form a coherent question. The man's face was mostly masked by the dimness but his emerald-like eyes shown like train's headlights. "Are you just like one of those three gals? The whores that died out on the street?" (Y/n) heartbeat began to quicken, she was wrong that butler wasn't the killer, this man was. When she looked at his eyes again they were molded into a sharp glare.  All of a sudden the man let go of her wrist "Doesn't matter.." he murmured "I got other things to take care of...." His deep voice kept fading like it too was getting swept up in the darkest parts of the ballroom. "Do me a favor if anyone asks where Kingscholar is, come up with some good lie to tell them. Just make sure you don't say anything about me going outside. Aright dame?" With that the darkness seemed to swallow him whole, even his footsteps couldn't be heard as he walked away, only the absence of his suffocating aura. 'He had to be the killer' she thought to herself as she stepped back into the light of the lively ballroom.

Tiredly (y/n) wondered to the dessert table,  her brain occupied, questions married questions, and gave birth to theories. Which one was it? The butler, lord Kingscholar? Neither may be, although that would just mean that you were only on edge rightfully, although you wished to keep your cool exterior. At the dessert table, every single surgery treat seemed to glisten. Their frosting's danced in the bright light of the thousands upon thousands of candles. (Y/n)'s mouth watered as she reached for a particular red tart in the corner of the desk. As she outstretched her hand it came to gently stroke up against another's hand. Her eyes darted upwards coming into contact with a smiling young man with clover colored hair. "My apologies my lady" He announced as he dipped into a bow. Automatically (y/n) gathered her skirts before curtsying herself. "Would you like the first piece" he offered, (y/n) nodded as the man cut a perfect slice and swiftly offered the plate to her before cutting one for himself. "I do adore cherry tarts" he spoke, "My family owns a bakery on the border of the upper west and east end. I personally stayed late last night just to finish this tart." (y/n) eyes began to shimmer as she placed the tart on the table. "So you must have heard the girl who was killed there!" she proclaimed. The man's eyes went wide, nervous beads of sweat dripped down his scalp. "Why miss, I don't know what your...implying." His once upbeat voice dropped an octave, his bright eyes seemed to get darker. For a second (y/n) contemplated what to do, was he acting so bizarrely because he had witnessed the murder? Or had he committed the murder? Before the young lady could ask him anything further a pair of boys, one short with a nest of blond unkempt hair and the other quite tall and muscular with snowy white hair came dashing towards them. "Have either of you seen leo- err, um" the blond one started

"The younger lord Kingscholar?" the white-haired boy started.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I...I saw him head to the dance floor with a young lady..." Her tone fluctuated, her face compressed into an emotionless look, prying to any who would listen that her lie would not be called out. The two boys exchanged a worried glance, their eyes as wide as plates. "He's probably with Ferona's wife again" the blond one spoke, nervous giggles leaping from his mouth. The taller boy quickly bowed, before running towards the host of dancers, his companion soon following his lead. When (y/n) turned back ready to speak with the grass haired young man, she noticed that he was nowhere in sight. Vanished like the magicians in the traveling circus.

For the third time that night, (y/n) could feel her heart pounding in her chest. The treat of a killer loomed at every corner of this mansion, every man here seemed to -in some way- resemble the faceless killer. And worst of all her "personal guard" was nowhere in sight! Not to mention her father was most likely off with some nobleman's wife or daughter doing lord knows what. Tears of frustration threatened to spill from her eyes. Everything was going wrong, she was no inspector, she could barely keep her composure during such a time of ease.

"Miss Crewel" A tiny bird-like voice, shook the girl from her misery. Turning her head she saw a young boy no older than 10. His blue hair and golden eyes were carbon copies of inspector Shrouds. "Where is my bother?" it took a moment for (y/n) to comprehend the question. "If you are talking about Mr. Shroud than I do not know...did he even attend tonight" the question came out more haughty than she had hoped, the last thing she wanted was to appear as a rude wrench to such a young child. "Well..." the boy's voice trailed off "He was supposed to meet you. You are the bait, aren't you? He was the officer entrusted with playing the role of your client." The young boy's eyes dropped his cheery pure nature slowly morphed into one as similar to his brothers, gloomy and dead.

"He hasn't been himself lately, the matter has only gotten worst when Scotland yard began investigating the killer....he's so tense about the matter, almost as if the case was perso--"

"THERE'S BEEN A MURDER! SOMEONE CALL THE POLICE QUICK!" From the front of the ballroom two boys, one with red hair and the other with ebony hair stood. There faces where distraught sweat flew down their cheeks. For a fraction of a second silence flew over the crowd....only to veer into screams of terror and the ramped running of both lords and ladies. During the midst of the anarchy, you searched the entire chamber...there was no sign of Idia, nor Lord Kingscholar, nor the green-haired boy, nor the rude butler....all those you had suspected where gone...

Following the crowd, you and Ortho ran outside into the gardens. Sure enough, laying in a pool of her own blood with a torn stomach and guts pulled out, was a young lady no older than you where and right around her bleeding kneck a parchment note was pinned.....

Who do you guys think the killer is?

Tag list

@ghostiebabey @delusional-obsessions @succubus-lair​ @themarchinghare​ @permanentlyexhaustedowl​ @twst-diana​ @yuoritsu​ @pumpkiethepie​ @ladyy-grimm​ @xwildskullx​

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 46

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Wutai was burning when we returned. We could see the smoke a ways off. I rushed to help, flying with Limit Breaker. People were trapped under rubble, a collapsed house and I picked it up off them allowing them to escape despite the flames licking out at me.

With my aura I was amongst the safest.

Neo caught up to me but I was already moving. I'd seen enough burnt down villages for a life-time.

I found Godo in the middle of town, he was directing the firefighting crews about.

"What happened here?"

"Strife-San? We were attacked. Bandits in the woods. Ever since Branwen took over they've been getting bolder. They took my daughter."

"Why would they do that?" My hands itched. I was jumping out of my skin. That murderous something rose up in me. The Grimm we'd slaughtered on the way back had satisfied me none.

"Ransom. They believe they'll be able to hold her over me and receive our supplies. It's not the first time we have been attacked in such a way. Though I was stronger back then. I fear for my daughter's life."

"I'll help you. You just worry about putting out the fires. I'll see about getting you your daughter back."

I had a great deal of pent up rage that could only be quelled against human opponents. Things prone to suffering deserved my attention, not like the Grimm.

"I would be in your debt."

I dismissed him with a wave of my gloved hand and turned to the tracks in the earth. My preternatural ability to track Grimm wouldn't help here but the footprints were clear in the soft ground and I was faster than even your average hunter. I'd catch up to them.

I flew through the woods. One hand out and the other back holding Crocea Mors up in its broadest form. I hungered for violence. The little book about my construction in my pocket felt as heavy as the relic by my side. It felt as heavy as Crocea Mors, even.

I wanted to use both my sword and the relic. After this… after this I'd give it a try. I needed something to help me cope and I wasn't sure murder and drugs were going to do it for me. I really wanted to kill something, though, something that could feel pain. And I really wanted to get these bugs out of my eyes.

Maybe knowledge would be the key. It was one of the four most powerful relics on Remnant's face. I'd be a fool to not try something with it.

I glid inches above the forest floor. The bramble and uneven ground which might have tripped me up couldn't slow me. I leaned forward over the vines and flew faster. It was dusk, only getting darker. Someone who couldn't fly would be seriously slowed and hampered by the terrain. I low profiled the tree branches and flew right through them where they might delay me, my aura and I weren't to be halted by this.

There was a reason most horror stories took place in the woods and at the moment I felt like such a terror.

I must have flown kilometers, chasing them through the underbrush they trampled and I merely breezed past. I left Neo behind but she'd be able to catch up if she was decent at tracking. Teleporting would also help her match me.

I could make out a light in the woods ahead. A small light which burned beneath the great pine trees.

I hovered forward and transitioned to easy footsteps. "Found you…" I murmured. I wanted to murder. I wanted death. I wanted to kill.

The bandits had a building made from hewn logs to make walls. I could spot the light of their campfire inside and a few tents. They didn't have wide enough walls for battlements and had no sentries. Instead it sounded like a party inside.

Neo appeared beside me. She panted hard for a minute or two as I took stock of the situation.

"Like I said, go nuts." I told her. "Personally I'm taking no prisoners."

She laughed silently beside me.

I front-flipped over the logs and landed in the middle of their camp near the blazing fire.

I spotted Yuma tied up with rope by the fire. She was surrounded by celebrating bandits who slowly went for their weapons. Well slowly relative to the speed I was running at.

"Things may not work out for you," I whispered, holding the broadsword level. Blue light streamed off my body and I felt good in the elevated state.

Some of them wore armor imitating Grimm bone. If they wanted Grimm I'd show them Grimm. I was a can of that type of worm. I would show them the trouble that meant. The beast in my chest roared something angry and malevolent.

I attacked. One nearest me went for a sword at his belt. I slashed him. Biting deep into aura, I knocked him to the ground. I brought my sword down in a hacking motion once, twice, three times and I sliced through him at the neck and sent his head rolling.

I felt the violent spirit inside me only grow louder. It was hungry for bloodshed and I was going to give it to it.

Spears, axes, guns all pointed at me. Neo flickered into place beside me and bullets bounced off her bullet proof umbrella.

I rolled behind her taking cover from the storm of bullets that ensued. When there was a reprieve I flew out from behind her and slashed down at a girl nearby me wearing that Grimm white bone on her shoulders. She flinched back and raised her pistol. I swung upwards and clipped her arms. Another man came at me with a spear but I blocked it to the side.

I Cross Slashed him and he fell into four pieces. Even without Limit I was feeling good. I… I wasn't sure I wanted to stop at these bandits. Wutai was weak. I could kill everyone there and no one would be the wiser.

I came back to the girl with the pistol and slashed her across the ribs. Then brought my blade down at her shoulder. Her aura flared and shattered as I thrust the wide blade into her chest. I gave it a shaking motion, bringing the Titania up and she fell off with a shlick noise.

I swung horizontally at one with a rifle and he tried to block with his weapon but I cut right through it and knocked him to the ground. I kicked him in the chest where he fell with my right foot in a snapping tai-kick. Then I stepped forward and snapped out a round kick with my left. Then I brought the blade around lightning fast and cut him at the torso, just above the arm, and all the way through his rib cage.

Another still I punished with a devastating falling aerieal attack. I sliced at him and tore away a chunk of aura. Then I side-flipped and slashed with the motion cutting him again. He tried to stab down at me but I caught it easily on my massive blade. I lifted my weapon and the motion tossed him backwards and I was on him with the cuts until he fell forever. Horizontal. Vertical. Diagonal. Vertical.

Neo landed beside me and pulled at my sleeve. She got my attention. I glanced at her face to see something like fear on her expression. I'd never seen her look like that. I followed her gaze. I turned to look at a woman in a Grimm faced mask with a long red katana. She had a wild mane of black hair that went waist length.

"You have some nerve attacking me."

"I have no idea who you are."

She laughed beneath her mask. "I'm the Khan of Khans."

"Raven Branwen. I know your daughter," I confessed.

"I have no daughter."

I charged Limit for a beat and was rewarded with the trailing, glowing, blue wisps. I twirled my weapon about and placed it between us. She waved her Katana at me, it was nearly four feet long but it looked fragile in comparison to Crocea Mors.

"I would know your name, Warrior. You know mine."

"I'm Cloud Strife. Your reign of destruction and pillaging ends here."

"Doubtful. Many have tried and stood where you now stand."

"None of them were like me. I am danger's oldest son."

She blurred forward as though to get around me but I matched her speed and blocked her. She lowered her weapon slightly. Because of the mask, I couldn't identify what emotion she felt. She was fast, like Cinder or Tyrian fast.

But I'd kept pace with Cinder when last we met. Raven blurred to one side, trying to flank me again but I matched her once more and our weapons collided in a flash of blue and red. She stumbled back and took stock of her situation. I was faster than her with my semblance active. I might even be outright stronger than her too by a degree. Perhaps even without my semblance. My range was superior to her too and of course, one way to look at that was that she is slower than Ruby who I was able to match at times.

I raised my weapon parallel to my face. I thrust at her but she swept it to the side. She front-flipped at me but I caught both her and her downward swing with a horizontal roof block. I held one hand on the handle and the other against the back of the blade. I held up the force of her strike and her entire body weight easily. I pressed her back and she landed on her feet neatly.

I wasn't about to back down from this fight. I felt like I had a real shot at winning it.

The beast in my chest let out a low wary murmur. It was not satisfied. I wasn't satisfied. Both I and it wanted Raven to die, just for getting in my way. It shrieked for more blood to be spilled. A devouring volume that kept rising. A drum that beat in time with my heart.

Raven came at me and slashed her katana then when I shielded she reversed it and tried to stab at me. I deflected that too and quickly brought the weight of Crocea Mors down on her head. She stepped back out of my range hurriedly, desperately avoiding the massive strike. The power of it left the earth grooved. For five feet out in front of the tip of the blade. It would have splashed that energy across her body if it had come into contact with her.

She jumped somersaulting acrobatically towards me and I just flew straight at her. Our blades met twice in a crossing gesture while in mid-air but I had some force propelling me as I flew and with a low guiding hum of metal on metal I flung her back into one of the tents.

She landed ungracefully and rolled to the side as I brought Crocea Mors thrusting vertically down where she had laid fallen. She kicked at me and I stumbled back from the force of it.

She swept her blade at my legs but I hovered over it, grabbed her and pushed her all the way back to the wall where the bandits had hurried logs to make up their camp.

I tried to push her straight through it but I only managed to slam her into it. At this range neither of our swords could be brought to bear and it turned into a melee.

She elbowed me in the face and down across my eye as I went to knee her in the gut. She knocked my knee back down, catching it on her one open palm.

I grabbed her by the shoulder and stuck out one leg and tossed her back all the way across the clearing. She rolled to her feet. Bringing her katana up to handle what came at her next.

I slashed at her twice before I thrust forward and caught her by the belly. I pulled twenty feet straight up in the air and came slamming back down on her with a Climb-Hazard. She dodged out of the way of the second hit. And sliced me across the chest. She went for another cut about mid-height but I deflected it and with a shout I slung her away and into the wall of the camp once more.

I ran up to her and slashed horizontally in a move that brought the fifteen foot high wall of logs down on us. She flickered out of the way but I cut my path up through the falling tree trunks.

"You know I thought you'd have a whole entourage with you, following the queen of the bandits. Seems to me you're mostly alone. Why is that?"

She jumped at me and I Limit Break blade-beamed her. The tall beam caught her by the legs and dragged her into it. The move blended against her aura until it began to crackle, then it tossed her away.

No longer glowing blue I found myself still propelled on nothing more than my will. I was tractionless above the ground and I slid at her on a pocket of air until I slashed at her baseball style and it connected across her body and sent her rebounding off the ground.

"Vernal is dead. I didn't kill her but your little spring maiden is gone." I went on.

I stood still, just charging away at my next Limit Break. I'd get it eventually and once I did I'd be in a comfortable position to end her.

"You work for her, for Salem."

"Yes." I breathed. "And no. We have a complicated relationship. Family is like that, though. I'm sure you understand."

She moved fast enough to leave behind an after-image. She sliced at me and I blocked the first attack but the second caught me under the ribs. It buffeted me back but I quickly regained my balance. She came around for a third but I twisted my much wider blade around to catch it.

She front kicked at me and caught me in the center of the chest. I was once more knocked back but I wasn't losing any real ground. I laughed. She cut me four more times in the blink of an eye. Slashing back and forth with her long red katana. The pain felt amazing. There was a popping sound as the air expanded around me and my semblance returned.

Blue flames licked out and I caught her sword arm, picked her up and slammed her face first into the ground once. Twice. Three times. Then I delivered a boot to her head that sent her rolling. I swept after her on a pocket of air and gave her an upwards gold swing.. It was a strike upwards that caught her by the chest.

It launched her into the air and I chased after her. I slashed at her with my heavy weapon while she was airborn and helpless. I spent Limit on an eight cut move. I hit her with two diagonal cuts that rebounded off her aura. Then I hit her with four horizontal ones. Then I front-flipped and delivered two more massive vertical ones alternating each direction.

The final hit sent her rocketing to earth where she threw up dust and dirt. I landed gently nearby and began to pace over to where she was slowly struggling to rise.

She sheathed her blade, I watched the compartment cycle for a moment until she withdrew it and shot a current of electricity at me.  It came at me like a curtain and I watched the yellow blade she had drawn shatter as she spent the dust forged into it.

It hardly mattered since the bolt threw me off my feet into the encampment wall and left me singed. She slashed at the air and a red portal appeared. She stepped into it and was gone as the portal faded and collapsed.

I screamed. When I picked myself up I howled and stabbed some poor bandit soul who was still standing too close, perhaps waiting to finish me off. My aura was indeed on the lower side, but not so low that I'd be finished by scum like that.

I reached out with my sword and slashed at the man's purple aura until it gave way and I sliced through his body too.

Neo reappeared beside me and for a moment I wanted to kill her too. I breathed in and out, nice and easy.

"I'm fine," I said through grit teeth. "Just pissed off she escaped me. I fucking had her dead to rights with that Octa-Slash."

She gestured at the remaining bandits.

"Kill them. Torture them. Whatever pleases you." She nodded looking relieved and pleased. She vanished, flickering away.

I walked over to Yuma and sheathed my broadsword. I pulled the longsword free from my back and cut her loose. I pulled the gag that had been in her mouth out.

She reached out and embraced me and the monster in my heart that I'd discovered in Merlot's laboratory died down. I just held the young girl in my arms and shushed her.

She looked over at what Neo was doing and I pulled her head back.

"Look at me, sweetheart. Don't pay that any attention." There was screaming coming from behind us.

"You saved me."

"It was the right thing to do." I said it gruffly like I didn't want to believe it. Ruby… Pyrrha… neither would be proud of they'd seen what I'd become and before this young girl I felt a crawling sense of shame.

I was ashamed of letting the darkness in my heart rule me.

So what if I was a puppet? So what if I was born a monster? So what even if I had to kill people? Even if I have to torture people?

I didn't have to like it. I wasn't sure if that was enough of a difference to set me free. I wasn't even sure if it gave me a sense of hope. More than anything I still felt an inching dread. Maybe I was hopeless. Maybe I was doomed.

But there was a difference between doing what I must for the sake of doing what I had to and doing what I wanted to because I could.

I didn't have to be like Tyrian. I didn't have to be like Salem's agents. I could still choose what I wanted. And tonight I'd chosen death and torture over everything else. I'd wanted that. Me.

And I couldn't take it back.

And a thousand saved little girls didn't change that.

It didn't change the fact that if Wutai hadn't been burning when I arrived, I might have been the one to burn it down. If there hadn't been a drive, something for me to focus my rage on I'd have been the cold creature that stalks the night. Just a puppet all the same.

I pulled the relic from my side and pulled the top off of it.

Blue gas floated free of it as it drifted loose of my fingers. The fire stopped flickering and held in place. Yuma held her shuddering sobs still.

A woman formed of that mist. She stretched over her golden chains and yawned.

"Ah- tell me now. What knowledge do you seek? Three questions yet remain this century. So ask, and I shall answer."

"Mother...How do I stop her? She can control me. So how do I stop Salem?" I choked out.  

The floating woman gave me a small sad smile.

"Stop her? Or vanquish her?"

"There's a difference?"

"You tell me."

"Either."

"You cannot vanquish her. As long as this planet turns, she shall walk it's face," the blue woman spoke. She floated forward and cupped my face in her hands. I looked away and where I touched her, her fingers faded into that blue mist.

"She's immortal? She's unbeatable, then."

"Perhaps. Only her mind. Her body can be injured, however temporarily. She can be cut and she can be lanced."

"Then… then she can be stopped. Just… just…"

"Just not forever. She will never be just a memory."

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG

[skania]

“And you loved her anyway.” & “And so am I.”

I have no interest in the Jaime discourse that’s been going around but I’m a sucker for parallels and honestly, this one really got me.

If you ask me, Jaime spent the entire episode running away from his choice, until it hit him in the gut because of Cersei facing imminent death.

It’s not Cersei having the upper hand that sends him back.

It’s knowing that it will get Cersei killed. That Dany will have no mercy.

That Cersei may die alone surrounded by her enemies.

The thing with Jaime is that he wants so bad to be an honorable knight, so bad to be like Brienne, who is the embodiment of all the qualities that he admires, that he kids himself into believing that he can run away.

That he can walk away from Cersei.

But he can’t. Once the fight is over and Jaime comes off cloud nine, the thought of Cersei follows him to bed; even when he shares it with a woman other than her for the first time in his entire life. Even when said woman is the paragon of everything he strives to be.

But the truth is that we have already seen Jaime’s face when he watches the woman he loves sleep and it’s not the same look he had on his face this episode.

(Pictures behind the cut)

Why is it so different? Why, when they had finally won the fight and he has even gotten to consummate his relationship with Brienne? Why, when he’s so enamored with her?

Why does he look so uneasy?

It seems pretty obvious to me in that scene that Jaime feels he doesn’t belong where he is. And it’s nothing to do with Brienne (who’s too good for him) and everything to do with him. And honestly? I bet Cersei weights on his mind. You can even see him sigh, see the tension in his jaw. And why wouldn’t he think of Cersei, when she’s the only woman by whose side he has ever slept?

This is the first time in the episode where we see Jaime being caught up by the thought of Cersei, and where we can observe that he’s nowhere near over her.

But he keeps running, thinks he may escape  from her if he stays in Winter Fell playing house with Brienne and ignores the battle that is about to go down in Kings Landing; something Jaime would have never done, because be it for Cersei or against her, Jaime is a knight. He would’ve made sure to see that battle to the end.

But he couldn’t. He hid away because he wasn’t ready to face Cersei.

The fact that he didn’t offer himself to battle against her said it all. But the episode explores it slowly, lets Jaime hide for a little longer.

And then comes the second reminder. When Bronn reveals that Cersei promised him a castle if he killed her brothers, Jaime is amused.

“And you believed Cersei?” he says. The exact kind of comment he threw at Tyrion back in the second episode. “She’s always been good at using the truth in her lies. [...] She’s fooled me more than anyone”.

In the second episode, it’s Tyrion who reminds Jaime of the undeniable truth: "She never fooled you. You always knew exactly what she was. And you loved her anyway."

But now, it’s Bronn. It’s only when Bronn says Cersei is dead meat that Jaime’s expression changes.

"I knew your sister was dead the second I saw those dragons."

The amusement is instantly gone. Cersei’s possible fate sobers him up. Once again, Jaime is painfully reminded of the fact that no matter how he tries to see Cersei now, he worries about her anyway. The thought of her dead hurts him.

And the fact that it gets him the way he does serves as a reminder of a simple fact:

“You loved her anyway.”

The third and final reminder comes from Sansa. When Jaime sees that raven fly in, he knows at once that they bring news from the battle. And once again, he thinks of running away.

He stares after them, weighting whether he should go in or not. But he wants to know. Needs to know. And so he goes.

When he hears that Euron killed one of Dany’s Dragons, Jaime understands two things. First is that Cersei kept her word; she is using Euron--Euron, who was the straw that broke his back in Season 7. Because it’s not until Cersei reveals that she plotted with Euron behind Jaime’s back that Jaime is truly angry--and thus the Golden Company to fight against Dany.

Second and most importantly: she is digging her own grave, because there’s no way in hell that Dany’s going to let her live now that she’s actually hurt her and killed one of her Dragons.

Sansa confirms this right away.

“I’ve always wanted to be there when they execute your sister. Seems like I might not get the chance.”

Dany is unforgiving and Cersei is as good as dead. Every chance of them letting her live is gone. Sansa knows this. Brienne knows this (“They're going to destroy that city. You know they will”). Jaime knows this.

And you can see in his face how much that shakes him. That’s when it catches up to him, the fact that he can’t leave Cersei alone. That he can’t let her die alone.

He knows then that he can’t run away anymore. That this is a battle that he can’t walk away from.

That he can’t walk away from Cersei.

The next time we see Jaime, he has already made his choice. He’s going back to Cersei. She’s his sister and he’s loved her for too long to let her die alone surrounded by enemies.

And Brienne knows exactly what Jaime is going off to do: “You don’t need to die with her.”

Jaime is not going there to fight against Dany and for Cersei. He knows that’s a lost battle.

Jaime has chosen to die with Cersei, whatever that might entail.

Look at how sad he looks when he admits that Cersei is hateful. He looks much, much sadder there than he does when he admits that he himself is.

Jaime loves a hateful woman. A woman who lies and manipulates, but who has never hid from him the kind of person she is.

And he loves her anyway.

And so, what does that say about him?

Back when Tyrion first pointed out that Cersei has never fooled Jaime, Jaime looked stricken.

But now he owns it. Him admitting that he’s no better than Cersei is him admitting that Tyrion was right. He did always know, and he did always love her despite it.

And now he’s ready to atone with her instead of running away from it.

“And so I am.”

He’s come full circle.

[stonefangs]

what’re your top two favorite cats of each clan (excluding your own), as of right now? :3c

how could you……………….make me pick…………………… ((cracks my knuckles)) 

Keep in mind that my favorites change with the tide, these are just the cats I’m especially vibing with atm! For the sake of Everyone’s dashboard, I’m putting my answers under a Read More,

NettleClan:

Squirrelwhisker! I am absolutely biased because I have Daisytooth, his brother, but I never fail to have a lot of fun rping with Squirrelwhisker! I’m always laughing my ass off with him because he gives me an excuse to do the absolute most ridiculous things using Daisytooth, but that’s not the only reason! I feel like he’s a really consistent character, and despite how he tends to have thoughts of heroism and idealism when it comes to presenting himself, he feels grounded and realistic! He’s just a good guy who’s trying to make the best of the hands dealt to him/his family/his Clan. 

And Badgerstep! I really do have a soft spot for boys that are just…. good. Badgerstep has always been a sweet man with a big heart and lots of love to share, I feel like he should really be a good role model for the young cats of NettleClan! He’s been going through really tough times recently, but he lets his friends and family help him. He’s always been a feel-good character for me, even from the beginning of FogClan! 

CreekClan:

ohhh man this was hard to narrow down to just two… I’ll go with 

Currentstar! At least from what I’ve seen of ThreeClan’s leaders since I’ve joined, this mans provides a fresh new perspective and feel to the role! Though I love lenient leaders, modern leaders, it’s super interesting to see a cat who is clinging hard to old traditions that he grew up abiding by– especially in such tumultuous times as the generations of the Clans that are growing after The Great Journey. When tradition has never been more challenged and questioned, he’s trying his best to find a sense of normalcy. But all the while, he’s a very sympathetic character who has been thrust into leadership very quickly and struggled to settle down and feel right in his own skin. He’s developed a lot so far, it shows that he’s getting more confident in himself with a few bumps in the road, but I respect him immensely! I also have a crush on him 

Aaaaand Carpfang! I’ll be honest, i NEVER expected to enjoy Carpfang near as much as I do now. Rough and cold characters are really not my favorite type by far, and I tend to get frustrated with them and their attitudes, but Carpfang has always been so much more than that. She’s hard on the outside, but she has true depth to her character beyond her reputation (and Marigoldpaw ((who is my third favorite)) has done amazing at helping her develop!). She’s not incapable of having trusting and intimate relationships, even if it takes a minute to get through to her, she has really realistic (imo) motives for feeling and acting the way she does, given her family history… She’s real, she’s relatable, she’s well-meaning for much of what matters, and she’s a real bad ass. I love a gal 

JaggedClan: 

MANTISSTAR MANTISSTAR MANTISSTAR MANTISSTAR MANTISSTAR!!!! She is my WIFE, my LOVE. I really don’t think that I’ve met another character who embodies literally all of my weaknesses, everything that I personally love to see in an OC. Mantisstar comes from a more than troubled origin, where she’d been coerced into an ugly side of history, a victim of circumstance but one who knew that being a victim didn’t excuse her from a certain responsibility of wrongdoing. She rose above the sum of her parts, helped to make right what bad things had been done despite her, a hero from humble origins– and from that, she developed this heroic complex, a NEED to do right, terrified of hurting others despite her intentions. It’s so interesting to see her struggle with making the right choices when things are never so perfectly black and white, even if it breaks my heart when she finds herself getting lost. She is a genuinely good person, she’s wise and kind- forgiving, but just. But she isn’t untouchable. She’s so tangible and real, she reminds me of real people that I’ve idolized in my own life, and I LOVE her. Not only is she my favorite JaggedClan cat, but she is my favorite ThreeClans character! 

Then there’s Magpiestorm. Honestly, I feel a Bit similar to her as I do about Carpfang. Though Magpiestorm is arguably more antagonistic and… unstable? than Carpfang is, she’s a whole different take on the hardass girl with troubled family and trust issues, and I honestly took a long while to warm up to her. Again, like I need to feel about all of my favorite characters, she feels developed and truer than just the tropes she happens to fit into. She’s really complex! Though she puts up these barbed wire laden walls all around her, feels obligated to no one but her sister, she has this clear struggle with an innate need for connection. She doesn’t enjoy the way that she acts, she wants to be able to do more, be better, but stubbornness and pride keeps her from letting go of her demons. For a little while she might begin to let those walls down, she might begin to seek out other cats and let other cats in closer to her, but then something will happen that pushes her right back into her own headspace in a cyclical internal struggle… It leaves me guessing, leaves me wanting more, makes me want to see which path she finally makes a commitment to! 

FogClan: 

By all means, Duskfang. I am so happy that the OC who shares my name is THIS FUCKING GOOD. Duskfang is probably one of the most complex and meticulously developed characters that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing from their conception to their present. She had this ambiguous, mysterious origin that has been perfectly pieced together over time, not near so much from OOC talk, but through revelation and parallels set up almost Too perfectly for her in the ongoing plot line. She, herself, started off mysterious and ambiguous– which, I’ll be honest, turned me off at first. I was expecting an almost… stereotypical secondary-antagonist role to come out of the Fang and Flicker duo, but we got so much more than that. Duskfang has struggled and struggled hard in every aspect of her existence since she’s joined FogClan. She’s had dilemmas and choices that no other cat could hardly dream of having to face, and she has made some very horrible decisions along the way… and I’ve never felt more sympathetic for someone else who’s done the equivalent of what she has? Because I’ve never been able to see exactly what a character is thinking, and exactly why they’re having the thoughts that they are, and how they could be made to feel such raw and powerful emotion that has been brewing and bubbling since the very first day they were ever written. Duskfang’s entire character just feels perfectly planned and perfectly executed, and I couldn’t have ever expected to get what she gives us! 

Another popular choice, I’m sure- but Foxflame! Another biased choice? Perhaps! Bramblefang loves him, so I’m just obligated to feel the same…. No, but really, Foxflame is another character that has given me a very pleasant surprise! I’ll be honest, he had my attention from the get-go because bubbly characters really are my guilty pleasure… I would have been satisfied if he just stayed a bubbly guy, a sweet person. No, but then we had to be introduced to the reasons Why they try so hard to make others smile, to make others happy. We had to get into the nitty gritty, his fears, his shortcomings, a need to protect his loved ones even at his own sacrifice. They can definitely be a bit of an airhead, too caught up in the strings of their own heart to listen to their head when they might need to, but that just makes them who they are! They’ve made some really questionable calls for the sake of their heart- he’s gone through the motions of a well-rounded character with beyond two dimensional motivations, and it’s always a pleasure to see him written in the good and bad moments! 

Tribe of Twisted Tunnels: 

Hehe these might be some interesting answers, if I can talk without giving too much away…. I’m gonna start off with: Aspen Snow. Man, tough girls really have been more my type than I was ever prepared to admit, but I’m not ashamed of it! I’m NOT! I’ve always watched Aspen Snow with a healthy intrigue from afar from when she was a to-be, but it wasn’t until the Tribe’s suffering was coming to a close that she really began to catch my attention. She was a scrappy to-be, full of spunk and a very, very unhealthy dose of youthful hubris. She was fun to read! But after her brother left the Tribe with Raven, it started off an arc that I really wasn’t prepared to see her through- in a good way! The pure hurt that she felt caught me by surprise. I wasn’t prepared to see just how much losing her brother, feeling betrayed by him, abandoned, would break her down. Nor was I expecting the way in which she pieced herself right back together, with fangs and claws and all. She grew bitter, became resentful of not only her brother, but much of the Tribe, its leaders. She needed others to blame, and she clung hard onto that. But then, with Spark Feather’s companionship, she began to ground herself more again. She coped better, she moved on for the sake of herself and others’ betterment instead of just pure spite…. And now? Ohoh. Now. There’s a lot going on with her now, like a relapse into those horrible moons passed, and I’m as scared as I am excited to see where it leads her! And now, the reason that this might be an interesting answer to insiders– Patched Petal. I am going to be straight up, at the same moment that she occupies my top two favorite’s spot, I resent her in her entirety. I am mad at Patched Petal. I am hurt by her and indignant completely on Aspen Snow’s behalf for what Patched Petal has done and is doing to her, things that she’s said to and felt about her own daughter. I resent her, but I’ll be damned if I’m not enraptured by it. Patched Petal has always been a difficult character for me to place– she’s never been very pleasant, but she’s also not been entirely disagreeable- before now. She was a stubborn mother with a fire in her heart that could only be tamed by her children, and after losing her son? It was all downhill from there. I feel like she has made every wrong decision that she could have made in regards to her remaining daughter, after Maple/Flickerclaw left. She’s closed herself away from Aspen Snow, she’s pined for her son to the point of ignoring her daughter, and she’s grown more and more resentful because Aspen Snow has decided that she doesn’t want to wait up for her any more. And now, her most recent development? I could strangle the woman, but it’s such an engrossing conflict that I can’t take my eyes off of this trainwreck…. Patched Petal, you are Something Else. And thus concludes my 2 top favorite cats in each group! My fingers hurt!

@squirrelwhiskr @nicks-cats @currentfangs @crowfalled @swanface @cinderstar @boulderstep

[gospelofsam]

PASSING DAYS

OOI.

           Twin ravens circled the clear Vanaheim skies, their mix of blue and green feathers glistening in the summer sun like newly polished gems. Below them, a wild landscape stretched on for miles in either direction. It was beautiful, yet untamed, much like the Vanir who resided there.

           Campsites dotted the plains, going on for as far as the eye could see. An arena was nestled somewhere in the middle of them all, hidden behind tall blades of yellowing grass and wildflowers. The entirety of the Vanir realm was overgrown, as were most of its occupants in their own right. Wild, untamed and free.

           One of the ravens, Hugin, perched on the branch of a lone oak tree. He ruffled his bright blue feathers. His beady green eyes followed two bodies as they travelled down the tilled path. Interested was the bird. Interested and watching, as was his job.

           The two stopped in their tracks, resting at the tree where Hugin had perched himself. They took a seat under the shade the expanse of leaves provided, talking and laughing amongst themselves. One, the boy, tossed a square of wood between each of his hands, his golden hair falling out from the man bun and into his face. He had sharp features, but not the kind that might scare someone off. No, they were gentle in their own ways, soft where it mattered the most. His eyes were as green as the landscape he was sitting in, as were the girls who leaned into him.

           Hugin, from what he could see from his place on the branch, could immediately tell the two were related. The girl’s hair, though, was much darker, as red as the autumn leaves. Yet they shared the same flawless complexion, the same emerald eyes, and the same pointed features. Elves, the raven assumed, possibly from Folkvangr, the Vanir parallel to Valhalla.

           “We should really get going,” the boy piped up, dropping his moving hands to the ground. They still fidgeted, Hugin noted, always ready and anxious for something new. Something more exciting than simply resting in the grass. “The others are probably waiting up for us, you know.”

           The girl rolled her eyes, a strand of her auburn hair popping out from the braid that rested over her shoulder. Her face was speckled in dirt, but that didn’t keep from the fact that she was a looker. “They know their way back. A couple of more minutes won’t hurt them.” She beamed at the other. A bright, happy grin like that was infectious. It made you want to smile, to keep her happy for as long as you could. The boy, who, like the girl who accompanied him, still remained nameless to Hugin. Munin, his sister, might have known, but she was still surveying the area, keeping watch over the realm their master dared not to go.

           The boy chose to return her smile, though he seemed hesitant to do so. He took the small wood black back into his hands, passing it under and over his slender fingers. Possibly to occupy himself, Hugin was unsure.

           After a few moments of silence, Munin, who’s feathers were more green than blue, landed on the branch opposite of him. Her eyes were a shining blue, much like Hugin’s feathers. She nodded at him, pointing her beak downwards at the brother and sister. Ah. So, these were the two they had been sent to find. Together, their bodies changed and shifted to look more human. Twin shapeshifters sat on the branch where the birds had once been. They couldn’t have been older than fifteen, maybe sixteen, but time and was easily disguisable.

           Munin plucked unruly feathers from her dark green hair, setting them in a neat pile beside her. Her hair fell in waves above her shoulder, but her eyes remained the same piercing blue. She looked accustomed to Vanaheim’s wild terrain, donning Doc Martin boots, denim jeans and a flannel. In her usual fashion, the articles of clothing all shared the green color scheme.

           Hugin, on the other hand, had much shorter, much more vibrant blue hair, mirroring the bright blue feathers his raven form bore. He and Munin’s color schemes were inversed, hers being mostly green, while his consisted of various shades of blue clothing. Unlike his sister, he was undoubtedly unprepared for the realm of the Vanir, having dressed in an oversized blue, almost black, sweater, jean capris, and sneakers. Munin gave an annoyed look, which Hugin countered by blowing a raspberry. He was mature like that.

           The two raven spies of Odin dropped down from their oaken perch, frightening the elven siblings as they landed. Well, more so when Munin landed. Hugin, who hadn’t timed his own jump right, hit the ground with a thud. His hands were scraped, bleeding slightly, but nothing felt or seemed to be broken. Still, the boy looked concerned. As Hugin got to his feet, brushing the grass from his palms onto his sweater, the blond elf rushed forward, dropping the wooden block from his hands. It was a rune, Hugin realized. Instead of the warmth that crept from the elf’s body into his own, he attempted to focus on the wooden rune. Distracting himself, really.

           Munin coughed, breaking up the boy’s healing session. She was clearly impatient, and Hugin couldn’t blame her. They had been given a task. They couldn’t afford to be held back by minor inconveniences such as injuring a hand. The boy backed away, but he and Hugin continued sharing eye contact. Even without words, the elf’s message was clear. He wanted to know if the shapeshifter was alright. Hugin nodded, silently assuring him he was. His scrapes had vanished, the only trace that he’d even injured himself in the first place being the trickles of his own blood staining the blades of grass crimson.

           “Stop gawking and do your job,” Munin grumbled, her elbow connecting with Hugin’s ribcage. He moved his emerald eyes away from the elf, his face burning, mostly out of embarrassment of being caught. Truthfully, he hadn’t realized he’d been staring.

           He cleared his throat, clasping his newly healed hands behind his back. The girl, he noticed, had been chuckling, but had been quieted by her brother, who looked as embarrassed as Hugin felt. He fidgeted behind his back, he looked over the two elves, attempting to piece together the signs that they had once trained under the Vanir deities Frey and Freya. The rune etched into the boy’s wooden block was fehu, the rune dedicated to Frey. That was the only indication the two were connected. His sister had a quiver slung over her back, which had a distinct triskelion pattern sewn into the fabric. It was a motif that had been associated with Freya for many winters. How had he just now noticed them?

           “You know, you two are easier to find than I thought you’d be.” said Hugin, keeping his tone light and humorous. Only the Allfather knew what these two could be capable of own their own, much less as a pairing. He wasn’t keen on returning to Oscar, the new Odin, with his wings clipped. “Frey and Freya’s…successors, am I right?” Replacements and successors. The two words were interchangeable now. The old gods were long gone, leaving behind legacies, prodigies, to take their places. That’s what Hugin and Munin were. Carbon copies of their parents with the same ultimate goal. Live, serve, and then die at Ragnarok.

           The elf’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment Hugin thought she’d draw her bow and send him stumbling back to Asgard with an arrow lodged in his chest. She nodded, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, we are. Why does that matter to you? What even are you?” She studied Hugin and Munin, like a hunter stalking prey. She was watching their moves, he realized. She was frightening, sure, but not intimidating.

           Beside him, Munin clicked her tongue. It wasn’t the first time they’d received the question and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last. “We’re shapeshifters, elf. I am Munin, and this,” She gestured to herself, then to Hugin. “is my brother, Hugin.”

           “Yeah, Thought and Memory. I’ve heard about you two.” The elven girl rose from her seat amongst the blades of grass. She smiled at them both, but there was a hint of disgust laced in her words, like the shapeshifters’ names had left a sour taste in her mouth. She almost reminded him of Munin. Almost. “Aerin and Olive.” From they way they had introduced them both, he could only assume that she was Olive and her brother was Aerin. Oddly enough, knowing their names was more comforting than knowing them solely by their predecessors. “There something you need or are you just stalking us?”

           Before Hugin could speak, Munin, as usual, took the lead. He didn’t mind. The less talking the better. “The Allfather wishes to see you,” she said, her tone placid and her face emotionless. Yet, he knew better than anyone that she was anxious. Asgard was their home. Vanaheim was uncharted and unfamiliar territory. “The matter is urgent.”

           Aerin’s light brows knit closely together. The Vanir and Aesir, despite the truce that had been put in place, had a strained relationship. It was a childish feud Hugin hoped had passed with the old gods. Now he knew that was far from the truth. “Why didn’t Oscar show up himself? The guy can come and go between the realms whenever he feels like it, but not drop by Vanaheim when it matters?” His sister shot him a warning look. If Aerin noticed it, he didn’t choose to acknowledge it. Or perhaps he didn’t care. Either was a plausible explanation.

           How Munin had stayed so calm was beyond him. She sighed, “It’s not my place to question the Allfather. My brother and I simply deliver his messages and watch whoever catches his interest.” Munin caught Hugin’s eyes and nodded to the twins. He made an ‘o’ with his lips and cleared his throat.

           “It’s just a meeting. A quick one, hopefully.” He added with a shrug of his shoulders. Oscar – Odin, same difference – hadn’t told him much about the topics of discussion, not that he ever did. Not that he wanted to keep the information to himself, but because Hugin and Munin had no real importance to the Allfather.

           The elves seemed to ponder the idea, each distracting themselves by fidgeting. A shared habit, he guessed. “Maybe we should talk somewhere else,” Aerin interjected, tucking his fehu rune into the pocket of his denim jacket. Olive nodded her agreement, dropping her hands back down to her side.

           Munin looked skeptical, and for the first time in awhile looked to Hugin for advice. He shrugged, a darkish smile adorning his features. He watched as the two elven deities started down the path once more.

           “Let’s not go back to Ossie on an empty stomach, yeah?’ Hugin urged his sister along, calling to Olive and Aerin to slow down. Munin groaned, annoyed, but hurried off after her younger brother.

[creativeashproductions]

Fate // Jughead Jones

Summary: Returning to the town you fled a decade ago following a career failure you never expected to fall in love with him again. You didn’t want to fall in love after the New York love you believed you had. It seems fate wanted to teach you a lesson again.

Characters: Jughead Jones x Reader, Betty Cooper (mentioned), Veronica Lodge, Archie Andrews (mentioned), and Reggie Mantle (mentioned).

Words: 2263

Disclaimer: I do now own Riverdale or the characters. I do not own any gifs that appear in this either or images because they’re probably off google images. The gif at the end comes from a youtube video of angst ridden Jughead scenes by the account littlesociopath other wise known as @wallflowerproduction

Warnings: Possible swearing, implied mental and emotionally abuse, fluff and angst.

Author: Caitsy.

A/N: I never actually edit my writing and I apologize for that but I’m way too busy to edit. This is also based on the Hallmark series Chesapeake Shores.

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You were firstly a playwright that had an astounding first play that had your name in the leagues of famous playwrights. You riding the high with your sold out play until a year later your second play was brought to stage. It came with mixed reviews but your fears of failure were hit when your third play was a massive crash with so much negative criticism that barely any tickets were sold after the opening night.

You retreated back to your hometown of Riverdale feeling pathetic. You hadn’t been back in Riverdale in the ten years since you graduated high school. You left behind everything for the big city. Even the boy was your confidant.

When your parents divorced following your mother leaving your barely there father you changed. First your old sister Anna ran when she graduated five years before you to build a new, albeit parentally parallel version, with two kids and a divorce. On graduation day you had your car packed for the rest of your life.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t come back but here you were standing on your family porch watching the kids play in the street. You had been back for three days to hide out with your little sister.

“He’s back in town.” Bella said tucking her legs under herself.

“Who?”

“Jughead.” Bella simply said, “Look I don’t know what happened in New York but Jughead won’t close the door in your face.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” Bella softly spoke.

“I broke his heart.” You sadly smiled thinking back on the day you told him you weren’t coming back. Just remembering his face split your heart in two, “Besides isn’t he happy with Betty?”



“They barely lasted a month after you left, you would know if you let me tell you that years ago.” Bella sung with a smug smirk.

You were shocked to hear that they had split up. Where you saw Jughead you would see Betty and vice versa. Maybe that’s why leaving was so easy. Knowing was too busy to hang out with you and that distance helped but it still hurt ten years later.

“He thinks I’m a pitiful human.” You grunted tapping your fingers against the chair, “I told him I was going to make it big and never have to come back. Yet here I am.”

“Has Ian called you yet?”

You tensed up remember the man you wasted seven years on both professionally and personally. Ian had been your mentor before it blossomed into a relationship you drowned yourself in. It took a year before your feelings for Jughead faded behind but things didn’t pan out. You caught Ian cheating and realized how toxic he was.

You vividly remember him praising your first play before cutting you down with the way you went about your second play. When you brought up wanting to sent a manuscript out he scoffed and reminded you that you were good but not that good.

“Ian’s part of my New York life. That part is done.” You spat, “I wasted seven years on someone who didn’t appreciate me. God I’m so stupid.”

“Will you tell me what happened?”

“Maybe another day.” You sulked climbing to your feet, “Gram threatened me to get out of the house. She says hiding out with just make the experience worse.”

Your gram was one smart lady and nobody went against her words. That’s why you had your jacket on and phone in your pocket. The first place you would go was Pops for a milkshake that no milkshake in New York could compare to.

“Wants some company?"



“Don’t you have that coffee shop you attend to.” You winked pressing a kiss against your sister’s cheek, “See you at supper.”

You knew people in town had heard of your return so when you walked in your were prepared to see looks from everyone. Didn’t make it any more comfortable as you leaned into the window with a melting milkshake in front of you.

“Hey hun.” The waiter spoke coming closer, “Would you like a new shake?”


“No thanks.” You mumbled.

“I’ll take a strawberry one.”

You tensed up looking to see a matured version of the boy that followed you in your dreams. Still wearing that ridiculously endearing crown was Jughead. He had scruff on his face and a little more definition in his body but it was still lanky sardonic humoured Jughead Jones.

“Jughead.”

“Y/N.”

Each of you playing with your hands as the awkwardness set in. What do you say to the person you were once so close with? Hey seemed so…weak but it’s not like you can launch into your latest horror.

“How’ve you been?” You awkwardly asked. Nostalgia set in as Jughead swiped the cherry on your milkshake, something never change.

“Same old when your best friend comes back after abandoning you.” Jughead shrugged with an edge in his voice. You winced, “Especially when you don’t know they’re coming seeing as they changed their number.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.” Jughead retorted leaning back, “But it’s not why I’m sitting with you. I want to know if your staying.”

“So you know where to avoid me?” You glared crossing your arms.


“No. So I can prepare to see you and not let it break me again.” Jughead returned, “Did you know Reggie’s coaching the football team? He lost his football scholarship after a gnarly knee injury his freshmen year.”


“No!” You gasped leaning forward, “What about Ronnie and Archie?”



“Together still.” Jughead rolled his eyes, “Archie told me they were thinking of having kids by next year. Their wedding was beautiful.”

“I couldn’t make it.” You admitted looking down at your hand.

“I know. It was opening week for your second play.” Jughead casually interjected as he ate the cherry from his recently delivered milkshake.

“You knew?” You gasped blinking at him.

“I went to your first play.” Jughead said leaning back, “Was going to say hi but you were busy.”

“Critics wanted-“

“No you were busy with what’s his face’s tongue in your throat.” Jughead sneered, “This was a mistake.”

Without a word you watched Jughead abandon his milkshake for the door and you made your second mistake. Not going after him.

You ran in Jughead multiple times the next week before he mysteriously disappeared for a month. You kept busy by staring at the second hand typewriter your father gifted you or helping Bella with her coffee shop. You had coffee with Veronica a few times also.

“You look gorgeous!” Ronnie exclaimed, “How are you not married!”

“Guess there hasn’t been time.”

“Or a certain raven haired man wasn’t in your life.” Ronnie sang sitting down into the chair. She was glowing still in that newlywed stage of her marriage.


“You look happy. I’m sorry I couldn’t be at your wedding.” You smiled at your old friend.


“I am.” Ronnie blushed looking down, “It’s okay you didn’t make it. You weren’t ready to see Jughead.”

“It’s stupid that I didn’t go to your wedding because I didn’t want to see how Jughead and Betty were.”

“They were over by then.” Ronnie said waving her hand.

“Bella mentioned that.” You whispered looking down, “What happened?”



“I think you leaving opened Jughead’s eyes to his feelings for you. Betty couldn’t deal with it and they broke up a month after you fled Riverdale. For little bit she..uh…went all dark no stars Betty again. Went to Stanford, met some guy and now has two kids in Boston.”

“Whoa.” You breathed, “I always thought they would get married.”

“Hm. Archie and I didn’t think so. I was always rooting for you and Jughead.” Ronnie shrugged taking a sip from her drink.

“Where is he?”

“Small book signing in Chicago and New York.”

You embarrassingly had each book that Jughead had gotten published in the years you hadn’t been in his life. There was one you wouldn’t touch though. It was something you would have never pegged Jughead to write about. It was a love story and you knew it was about Betty and it hurt too much to read that.

“Oh.” You mumbled.

“Gosh look at the time.” Ronnie said catching the eyes of someone coming in the door, “I totally forgot Archie and I have dinner plans.”

In a tornado of sophistication Ronnie strode out of the coffee shop your objections falling on deaf ears. It was barely half past one.

“You’re here.” Jughead sighed sitting down in the newly vacant seat.

“This was staged?!”

“Ronnie believes Archie and her planned me into coming here unbeknownst your were here too.” Jughead informed you, “They’re too predictable.”

“I thought you were ignoring me.”

“Once again. I don’t have your new number and by the time I wanted to find you I was being herded to Chicago.” Jughead retorted, “In fact when I broke up with Betty I drove all the way to New York to tell you I loved you but I saw something between you and that Ian guy.”

“You wanted to see me again after I broke your heart.” You marvelled as he blushed a very faint pink as he brushed it off with a scoff.

“Of course I did. I want to know everything about you Y/N.” He chortled goodheartedly, “So tell me everything since you’ve left Riverdale.”

And so you did.

You told him about how you struggled the first few years in New York to get your work onto stage while waitressing when you could. You told him how you met Ian and you were blind to what Ian was doing. You told him how you felt with your plays and how you had wanted to be published but Ian broke you down.

And he listened and maybe that was his second mistake.

In a span of two hours you relearnt everything about each other with that same spark reigniting between you two. Soon coffee turned into lunch dates and lunch dates turned into movie and takeout. It led to staying over and I love you’s. It also led to a regret you knew you would have for the rest of your life.

Six months following your relocation to Riverdale things got complicated. Your mother moved back along with your two other siblings. Anna brought your nephews after their father lost his rights to them. Dylan, like you, retreated after an epiphany got him thinking why he was in a job he hated.

It took time before your family healed and Jughead stood by your side as it happened with resolve to never leave. That’s why when a thick envelope came in the mail with your name you were both confused and elated.

A big publishing head in New York had resent your half finished manuscript back with good reviews and you were getting published.

“Who did this?” You spoke amid the celebratory hugs from your sisters and mother.


“You didn’t send it?” Anna asked equally confused. It seemed the only one that had an inkling was in fact your mother.

“Who knows you were writing-“


“Jughead.” Your voice broke as you said his name.

They awed over the fact that he believed so strongly he sent your manuscript in but you didn’t feel that same emotion.

Smiling at the Riverdale folks strolling past you finished placing the books into the piles on the tables outside before sighing. You had reopened the bookstore in the middle of town to bring imagination back into the same town. It was something you had loved growing up and wanted to give young children the same experience.

“Hey babe.” Jughead said pressing a kiss to your cheek. He had been in Toledo visiting his little sister Jellybean for the last week.

“Hey Jughead.” You murmured stepping away from him.

“What’s wrong?” He questioned looking to see you were looking anywhere but him.

“Did you send my manuscript in?”

“They want to publish it?” Jughead grinned placing his hands on your shoulders to combat his excitement.

“They do.” You sighed looking up at him with such heartbreak he was confused, “I don’t appreciate that you did that with out my approval.”



Jughead was now beyond confused because he thought you would be happy knowing that you were getting published. Something he knew that you didn’t believe you could do on your own.

“It’s just a manuscript.”



“You don’t understand. You didn’t let me decide about it Jughead. You took that right from me and that’s not okay. I spent seven years in New York living with that and when I got back to Riverdale I promised myself I would never let that happen.”


“I’m nothing like Ian, Y/N!” Jughead exclaimed shocked.

“I know but what you did is exactly what Ian did to me. He changed my plays by convincing me they needed to change. I didn’t get to decide what happened in my plays and it affected my career.”

“I’m sorry.”



“I am too.” You cried, “I’m sorry Jughead and I’m going to regret this the rest of my life but I can’t let the time I’ve spent refinding myself and leaving New York be wasted.”

It seemed like earth was just as upset about the break up as both Jughead and you were because it began to pour down. Raising a hand to Jughead’s cheek you pressed a kiss to his lips before heading inside your bookstore already regretting that you had done.

(gif from @wallflowerproduction on youtube via their account littlesociopath

But in the end placing yourself first after those years with Ian was needed.

Forever Tag List

@cityofsobbingfangirls @tas898 @barbidollash @trustnobodyshootfirst @winchesterfanfiction @deanwinchesterisamazing @oh-my-hecky-padalecki @padackles2010 @msimpala67 @deangirl5509 @heyitssilverwolf @therealme13posts @petlaufeyson @professionally-crazed @winterhurricane @tearsandbloodofmyenemies @blackwidow-romanoff @crazybarnes @marvelofcourse @takemetothefictionalworld @destiel67bellarke @ohmy-sammy @fightinthepain @vivabucky @waituntilthedustsettles @daydreaming1393 @cumonbucky @inhumans-of-shield @basicwhiskeyprincesss @soulfull-ofevans @spookass @glitterintheairblog @girl-with-wild-dreams @frickin-bats @darkestgrungeuniverse @shamvictoria11 @buckyappreciationsociety @sammysgirl1997 @fly-f0rever @archer-whovian-violinist @jenn0755 @anamarieswift2194 @unicornofdanger @ifyoudie @jealousbitxh @stormin-thru-glitter @sparklyaura @stilescstilinski @curlyxtomato @katshrev @its-sanaa-k @theoismydad @im-a-light-child @tmriddler @flirtswithdanger @divide-supermarketflowers @arkhamasylumpatient-blog1 @introverted-fandom-human @jennylj16 @potterandbucky @harleenq4life @runs-with-sciss0rs @superhero-lover101 @ridingmoxley

Riverdale Taglist

@n0average @ateliefloresdaprimavera @sgarrett49 @jarchiee @casismyguardianangel @supernovares @juggie-sprouse @an-enigmatic-avenger @leah-khaleesi @rax-writes @shameless-danni @rapunzxl @peetapansneverland @peetapansneverland @sebby-staan @katshrev @zachmantle @30inlovewiththecoco1 @semoremohhh @gilly-grantgustin-the-flash-glee @roses-are-bae @jackyfrost01 @cheytheredhead @my-baby-daryldixon @ladyfairenvale

[ecofinisher]

Abominable 2.0 - Chap 24

Chapter 24

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006036/chapters/54791692

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13463708/24/Abominable-2-The-Fanfic-Sequel

https://www.wattpad.com/843441530-abominable-2-0-chapter-24

The next day Dave and Peng sat together in the evening on the stairs in front of a small sea in the garden of dreams both drinking from a plastic bottle different flavored milk.

“I feel like buttermilk tastes the same to me” The child told the adult, which drank strawberry-flavored buttermilk.

“I think it’s harder to figure it out, because of the fruit flavor. It would be easier, if we would be drinking the natural one to recognize it,” Dave mentioned followed by taking a sip from the drink along with Peng and together they watched on the other side citizens stroll around the park passing by a pavilion where a trio of students sat studying with the help of books.

“Miss Burnish hasn’t said anything yet about Jin?” Peng asked looking at the adult, which scratched himself on the beard.

“Not yet” The man answered. “I bet in an hour or two we know it”

“That would be great” Peng admitted watching the trio of two girls and a boy studying together. “You’re wondering, how I remembered to ask that?”

“Per coincidence…..has it to do something with the students under the pavilion?” Dave asked earning a nod from the boy. “What are Jin and Yi learning at their school?”

“Jin is studying medicine and Yi something with technic. I don’t really know, what exactly she’s learning,”

“Okay and how long are they going to be learning their courses?” Dave asked. “Any idea?” Dave asked seeing Peng shrug his shoulders. “Oh, alright”

“They have just started last year. That’s the only thing I know” Peng mentioned. “Hey what could we give Yi and Jin, when they first get here?”

“What do you mean?” Dave asked. “Like food?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. A welcome gift or something,” “We could check the next store, but I think the first thing they want is to rest their mind and body. Mostly, if we’re planning to go up to the Himalayas,”

“I think you’re right Dave” Peng confessed. “They have been looking for us non-stop. They stopped to overnight, wherever it was possible, but during the day they have never stopped to look for us. They really need that break,”

"We’ve got time. We can even go when both are resting and surprise them after it” Dave suggested. “I think that’s a better idea” Peng agreed.

 The Haas family sat all inside the family SUV along with Yi and Jin, which sat on the back of the car together with Sonja and Ben sat behind them on a separate car seat, which was open for him. Jin lied with his head against the window with closed eyes, behind him on the shoulder Yi had her head leaned on him, also resting along the ride. “I wonder how anyone can get a well bit of sleep when sleeping in the car” Sonja mentioned glancing at the Chinese students next to her. “Mostly when lying on the window” “They must still be tired from yesterday,” Mrs. Haas said making Sonja nod. “I believe yesterday both have come really closer together.....at least they seemed more affectionate about being closer to the other” “I’ve noticed on their arrival down at the track” The mother mentioned. “They don’t need anything more to realize they like each other” The mother admitted glancing back at the pair, hearing the soft snoring of one of the two students. Sonja saw on Yi’s pocket on her pants her smartphone and took it out carefully and Yi opened up her eyes and noticed Sonja taking his smartphone out.

“What are you doing?” Yi asked and Sonja gave her the smartphone back.

“I was doing you a favor” Sonja mentioned and Yi noticed, she had been lying on Jin’s shoulder, then smiled a little amatory and looked at Sonja.

“We’ve grown really tight the past few days” Yi mentioned. “And I’ve noticed days ago, that he’s trying to figure out how to make the next step. He surely knows I’m in love with him too”

“We have noted his attraction on you too” The blonde teenager added. “You will see soon or later he will ask you out and you will be glad you waited so long for it”

“You know….he doesn’t know that, but I’ve caught him a few days ago practicing with a dog how to ask me out….I….it’s funny….I never noticed Jin had such a soft side….I feel like I’ve got on this trip more attracted to him as I already was”

“Aww” Sonja commented looking along with Yi at the sleeping med student.

“Random information ladies and gentlemen. We will arrive in the next five minutes the Kathmandu airport. Please make sure you’re still sitting until we come to a full stop,” The father joked making Yi chuckle. “This sounded like in an airplane didn’t it?” Mr. Haas questioned the raven-haired girl, which shrugged her shoulders.

“Nearly it did” Yi commented, then Sonja tapped the girl on the shoulder and pointed at Jin.

“Someone should wake him up” Sonja decreed the friend, which looked at Jin lying with his face against the window. Yi nudged Jin on the shoulder slowly watching him still sleeping, then she shove him more firmly seeing him shut his eyes open and sat up caressing his cheek, where he had lied on the car window.

“Where am I?” Jin asked looking at Yi and Sonja sitting beside him.

“We’re here sleepy head” Sonja commented watching Jin yawn and stretch his arms.

“We’re at the airport of Kathmandu” Yi stated and Jin looked out of the window to see their car enter into the arrivals in front of the airport.

“This is where we agreed with Miss Burnish to meet Peng” Jin mentioned.

“And Dave” Yi mentioned. “And how does he look like again?”

“I don’t remember exactly. I think he has a mustache,” Jin mentioned.

“The one who borrowed you the jacket?”

“Yeah also I think he was the same guy, you hit him on the nose causing him a nosebleed”

“Oh right, that Dave” Yi stated remembering back in the Himalayas how she had hit him with her hand to escape to help yeti Everest.

“You hit someone in the nose?” Ben asked looking at Yi.

“That was a bad reflex” Yi mentioned a little embarrassed. “But we’re good”

“Jin, Yi, do you two want to leave here?” Mr. Haas offered. “There’s no free park here at the moment” “Sure we can, you don’t need to keep looking” Yi answered and the SUV stopped on the road close to the parallel parking spots in front of the exit of the airport.

“Let them out honey” Mrs. Haas pleaded the daughter, which opened the door and stepped out of the car, waiting until Jin and Yi had left.

“Thank you so much for everything you and your family did to us” Yi thanked.

“And thanks for washing our clothes” Jin added. “The scent is now gone, but I enjoyed the smell of ocean” Jin complimented earning a smile from Sonja’s mother.

“I’m glad you were happy with the shirt. Sorry I couldn’t iron it” Mrs. Haas apologized seeing Jin shake his head and lift his hands up. “It’s no big deal, I’m fine with it” Jin mentioned.

“Has anyone of you Facestargram or anything, where we could chat once in a while?” Sonja asked earning a nod from the duo.

“I can write my username down on your notes” Yi suggested watching Sonja hand her out the smartphone to type down her username. “You will find Jin under my followers or vice versa. He’s very…..known” Yi commented making Jin snicker.

“15k followers” Jin mentioned making Sonja wide her eyes in shock.

“What did you do to have that many followers?” Sonja asked watching Jin shrug his shoulders.

“Nothing, the popular friends I used to hang out with had suggested my account to other people until one day I had that many followers” Jin mentioned. “I used to have more than that thought”

“I will look for you two, when I catch WIFI somewhere, don’t worry”

“We see that when we catch WIFI too” Yi added chuckling along with the blonde.

“Stay together you two and be careful, don’t do the same thing you did last time back there in the streets” Mr. Haas warned earning a nod from the two Chinese students.

“We will be more careful this time. Pinky promise” Yi pledged earning a smile from the adults.

“Goodbye and have a good time” Mrs. Haas wished.

“And call us, if you need something. We’ll be in Kathmandu for the next two days” Mr. Haas mentioned earning a nod from the duo, which watched the family leave and follow the road to the exit of the airport space.

“I can’t believe it we made it” Jin announced throwing his arms up in the air excited. “We’re in Nepal!”

“I know, it’s amazing?” Yi admitted with a fabulous smile, then was embraced by the tall boy, which lifted the girl in the air and placed her on the ground again laughing along with her. “We made a pretty good team…...without counting the last 24 hours I mean” Yi mentioned earning a nod from Jin.

“We still are” Jin added placing his hand on Yi’s shoulder, then Yi embraced the tall boy, which smiled gently at the girl and caressed her back. Both gazed at each other after their hug, then they heard someone shout and they looked together across the sidewalk to see Peng ran towards them making them smile as they recognized the child.

“Peng!” Jin cried seeing his younger cousin approaching the two and Peng joined the two teenagers into a group hug.

“You’re here Jin!” Peng exclaimed hugging both friends tightly.

“Great to see you’re alright,” Yi said feeling the boy’s hug get harder around her and Jin. “Woah Peng, take it easy”

“I’m so sorry Jin,” Peng complained starting to tear up in front of the two students. “I’m sorry, that I made you two cross China just because of my nonsense,”

“Shhh everything will be fine, little cuz,” Jin tried to comfort his cousin passing his thumb under his left eye cleaning his tear off. “You know I would have done that the one or the other way”

“Really?” Peng asked earning a nod from Jin.

“Even if you went to Europe or Africa. I would not give up until I find you” Jin added exchanging looks with Yi.

“And you know he’s being serious” Yi added making Peng chuckle a little, additionally Yi helped Peng clean his tears off the face.

“Where’s Dave?” Jin asked, then saw him approach the trio a little quietly and stopped in front of the medical student.

“I just knew it a little later, that you two were looking for him. But I made sure he would be out of danger” The man explained earning a short nod from the raven-haired teen.

“Thanks for taking care of Peng during this space of time,” Jin said holding his hand out to shake.

“We have checked in at a hotel in the near. I managed to get a room with at least three beds. You and your cousin can share the couple bed while I and your friend have our own bed” Dave explained the teenager, which nodded.

“Thanks, Dave,” Jin said then glanced down at the younger cousin, which was looking at Yi, which was soothing him down followed by Jin placing his hand behind the cousin’s back to assist the reassurance.

[nomoremetaphors]

WASTED POTENTIAL: X-Men: First Class and the Death of Armando Muñoz

Or, How Racism F%#@ed the X-Men Movies

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am absolutely, ridiculously invested in the X-Men Cinematic Universe.  Or, more specifically, I’m invested in what the XMCU could have been, if it had been approached as a cohesive whole rather than a series of vaguely confused attempts at continuity and Wolverine cameos.

For me, the biggest moment of missed potential comes with the death of Armando “Darwin” Muñoz at the midpoint of X-Men: First Class.  People have talked, of course, about how his death was racist and doesn’t make sense -- because it was racist, and fundamentally, it doesn’t make sense.

To be fair, I don’t think the writers were being intentionally racist when they killed Armando off in the same scene where the movie’s only other black character defects to the side of the bad guys.  I don’t think they were being intentionally racist when they had a Nazi kill a black man, who, in the comics, is literally and demonstrably unkillable.

But they did these things, and these things were racist.

And to be honest, that racism kinda f%#@ed the franchise.  It’s not the only thing that did -- the decision to put ten year timeskips in between each movie of the second trilogy certainly didn’t help matters -- but I think that it’s the single bad decision that, if averted, would have changed everything.

Under the cut, I’ll discuss why Armando was such a significant character, and why his death shaped the direction of the franchise by destroying some pretty epic narrative possibilities.

(Trigger Warnings for: mentions of suicide, depression, trauma, real life racism, human experimentation.  Nothing more explicit than XMCU canon, however.)

Part One: Armando as Narrative and Thematic Lynchpin

For a character with roughly seven minutes of screentime, Armando has a huge amount of narrative and thematic significance, and his character relationships are some of the most fascinating in a film that is, by and large, about character dynamics and interactions.

Part 1-A: Armando and Alex, Charles and Erik, and Parallelism

First, you have to account for Alex Summers.  Alex is, narratively speaking, intertwined with Darwin, and I’m not just saying that because I ship the thing.  From the moment they’re both on screen together until after Darwin’s death, their stories are intimately connected.  Darwin’s death moves Alex irrevocably, though the final cut of the film fails to explicitly address that; it even has ripples to Alex’s own death, 21 years and 2 movies later, which visually and narratively echoes Darwin’s.

To make a long story short, Armando and Alex have a significant and almost immediate connection as soon as they interact.  Alex fears his mutation, and Armando sees everyone’s mutations as gifts.  In the next scene they're in -- Darwin’s last, unfortunately -- they've carved a space for themselves away from the rest of the group, playing pinball together.  Pinball, interestingly, was technically illegal, and therefore an underground practice, in most places in 1962.  It was, however, popular in Greenwich Village and Harlem, and given that Armando is from New York and Alex is a somewhat queer-coded ex-con, it makes sense that they’d be the ones playing.

That said, their body language speaks to a closeness that is deeply unusual given the short time they’ve known each other and the historical context in which this film takes place.  When things start to go south at the compound, Armando gets Alex’s attention not by saying anything, but by drawing his hand across Alex’s torso, physically directing his attention to the direction that Armando’s moving.

Alex spends the majority of that scene following Armando’s unspoken directions, actually.  If you follow Alex’s posture and eyes throughout the scene, you’ll catch several instances where he’s looking to Armando to see what to do next.  They even touch more than once during the fight.

Additionally, Alex winds up standing at Armando’s right hand during the pivotal part of the scene, when Shaw is making his “sales pitch” to the young mutants. You see Alex sway a little toward Armando, eventually positioned at his shoulder.  It’s all very King and Lionheart, and something that the small fanbase that ships them has caught onto.  

Then, we come to the biggest moment: when Armando makes the plan, communicates it to Alex with nothing but a look and possibly an offscreen touch, and pretends to defect with Angel.  You see the expressions shifting over Alex’s face as he goes from ‘betrayed’ to ‘understanding’ in the space of literally three seconds.  There’s a plan, and Alex is going to follow Armando’s lead.

This goes wrong, of course, because of Shaw’s mutation.  When Armando calls out Alex’s name -- his last word, actually -- and Alex uses his energy blast to try and kill Shaw, Riptide, and Azazel, Shaw uses his mutation to steal that energy, and to shove it down Armando’s throat.  When Shaw leaves with his lackeys and Angel, the scene’s ending focuses entirely on Alex and Armando.  Alex realizes that something is going horribly wrong, that Armando’s not adapting fast enough, and Armando looks at him, reaches out to him -- but neither of them says anything.

In my opinion, this character dynamic is a parallel and opposite to the Charles/Erik dynamic that so many people loved in XMFC.  They can communicate completely silently, and all their most important moments are silent, whereas Charles and Erik have their relationship take up the lion’s share of the dialogue in the film.  When Shaw uses Alex’s powers to kill Armando, Alex and Armando are trying to keep the team together.  When Erik accidentally disables Charles with a bullet from Moira’s gun, he’s taking up Shaw’s war and making Shaw’s offer to the team.

Touch, too, is used very differently in the two dynamics; for Alex and Darwin, it essentially begins and climaxes with touch, and ends with an inability to touch, and the utter destruction of Armando’s body.  When Charles and Erik’s relationship falls apart, Erik gets to cradle Charles in his arms before choosing to walk away from him.  

When you look at each character individually, you can also see clear parallels between Erik/Alex and Charles/Armando.  Erik and Alex are angry, with violence in their past: Erik’s trauma is pretty much the defining factor in the plot, and there is a deleted scene for Alex that explains that he once used his powers to defend himself from being brutalized in prison.  Armando and Charles are both de-facto leaders when the time comes to lead, and Armando is probably the closest thing to a functional adult among the young mutants; that said, actor Edi Gathegi has stated that he played Armando with his comic book backstory, which includes a history of depression and a suicide attempt spurred by a neglectful abusive mother, and the entire plot of Days of Future Past had to do with Charles’s inability to cope with the trauma inflicted on him by Erik and the ensuing decade of horrors that was the sixties for him.

Overall, whether intentional or not, the Alex/Darwin dynamic echoes and mirrors the Charles/Erik one, reinforcing the theme that solidarity is impossible -- likely an unintentional theme -- and the idea of the homosocial-bordering-on-homerotic relationship.

Part 1-B: Armando, his Powers, and the Historical Context

I also can’t write this post without pointing out that Armando is the first black male mutant of significance in the XMCU franchise, both in order of release and chronologically.  I cannot overstate, also, the relevance of a black man whose powers are literally just staying alive no matter what the world throws at him.  

People rightfully made a big deal about Luke Cage, another bulletproof black man in the Marvel pantheon, and how important it was to see him onscreen.  Right now, there is an ongoing and urgent public discourse about police brutality, and the way society undermines the personhood and the value of black lives.  

Armando’s death in X-Men: First Class makes no sense, because in the comics, he’s survived everything from being launched into space, dematerializing into an energy being, and being touched by a literal god of Death.  If anyone could survive Shaw, it would be Armando.  

Additionally, consider that this film is set in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It only predates Freedom Summer by two years, and the Civil Rights Act by three.  Armando’s blackness and his leadership role in the team matter, on a thematic and contextual level.  A team of mutants -- long an allegory for all manner of oppressed populations -- led by an unkillable black man in the 1960s has immediate political ramifications for the setting, and for the present.

But the film refuses to recognize these things by killing him off and minimizing his relevance after the scene immediately following his death.

After Armando dies, we see the morning after, when Charles, Erik, and Moira return to the smoking wreckage of the Virginia compound to find Angel gone, Armando dead, and the rest of the team deeply, deeply shaken.  We see, in the background, the crushed taxicab that used to belong to him.  Charles and Raven have a brief conversation, where she tells him that Armando is dead, “and we can’t even bury him.” 

Erik interjects with, “But we can avenge him.”  This draws Alex’s attention immediately, making him sit up after having spent the majority of the scene somewhat curled in on himself.

After that, the final cut of the film doesn’t include any reference to Armando whatsoever, even when it would have mattered.  A single deleted scene set during Alex’s training montage discusses Alex’s guilt or innocence in the matter -- Charles tells Alex that if he doesn’t get this right, he could kill one of his teammates.  Alex reacts by stopping, saying, “He asked me to cover him,” and storming out of the bunker he’s using to train.

I understand that Erik’s trauma is the fundamentally important one for the plot of this film, but wouldn’t the movie be thematically fuller and rounder if it dealt, even implicitly, with Armando’s death and the effect it had on the others, especially Alex?  After all, as I said before, Alex and Erik parallel each other in a lot of pivotal ways, from their dark pasts to their weaponized mutations.  

Part 1-C: Armando and the Death of Solidarity

I mentioned earlier that Armando’s death reinforces the theme that solidarity is impossible, and I’d like to expand on that.  I wrote a little bit about it in my thesis, Never Let Anyone Tell You Different, but essentially, a major unintentional problem with the X-Men franchise in general and the XMCU in particular is that it always splits mutants into good mutants and evil mutants, often refusing to recognize that there is a huge grey area in between, and that the allegory mutants represent makes this idea of good versus evil genuinely harmful.

Armando’s death is the first real fracture in mutantkind, and first, last, and only time anyone actively tries to maintain a sense of mutant solidarity, or to keep someone from joining the ‘evil’ mutants out of desperation, anger, or fear.  Armando’s attempt to keep Angel on their ‘side’ of Shaw’s war is literally the only time in the franchise that something like this happens -- for example, at the end of the movie, Charles chooses to not fight it when Raven tells him she’s leaving with Erik, and in X2: X-Men United, neither Bobby Drake or Rogue try to convince John Allerdyce not to leave and join the Brotherhood of Mutants.  Finally, in X-Men: The Last Stand, Logan seems fairly ambivalent on the subject of Rogue leaving the Institute to seek out a cure for her mutation.

Basically, the only attempt at maintaining a sense of communality among mutants, to fight that ever-present categorical dichotomy, fails.  And when it does, it also divides mutantkind sharply -- by the end of XMFC, the X-Men are all white men, though one is a non-passing mutant and one has a mobility disability.  The ‘evil’ mutants consist of two white women, a white-passing Jewish holocaust survivor, an Afro-Latina former sex worker, a non-passing mutant, and a Latino man.

I don’t think I need to explain why that’s a huge, huge allegorical problem, but I will anyway: when you divide out morality by associating goodness primarily with white maleness, you’re prioritizing positive representation of white men at the expense of representing everyone else, and that has a demonstrable effect on the the way people perceive themselves and others.  We tell stories to define ourselves as human, and as parts of communities, and to learn how to be human, in a big way.

So, by killing off Armando, and with him, solidarity, the XMCU reinforces power structures that the entire concept of the X-Men as a mythos is supposed to oppose, which is, I’d say, not a good look.

Part Two: What Could Have Been

I want to take this time to talk, now that I’ve explained what’s wrong with the franchise as a direct result of Armando’s untimely murder, about what the XMCU could have been if he’d survived, or if he’d come back at some point after the attack on the Virginia CIA compound.

Option 1: No Death, XMFC-timeline goes off in other direction from the canon.  Armando survives the blast and goes on to lead the X-Men through the battle during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  He makes an impassioned plea for Raven to stay, and for Angel to come back.  They may or may not, and Charles still gets shot, creating a bittersweet but ultimately hopeful ending for the movie.

Option 2: Post-XMFC, does not take into account Days of Future Past. Armando reassembles himself after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and has to deal with his own trauma, as well as the trauma that the others have gone through in his absence.  He still takes up the leadership role, especially when Charles starts to spiral.  The X-Men debut publicly after the assassination of Kennedy.  Alex gets drafted for Vietnam, winds up involved in anti-war protests, and Armando, as a public figure, has to balance being a mutant with being a black man in America during this period.

Option 3: Days of Future Past.  Instead of being sent back to prevent Mystique from getting her revenge on Bolivar Trask, Wolverine goes back to the past to prevent Armando from being captured by Trask Industries.  His mutation is the one used by Trask to create the Mark X Sentinels that destroy mutantkind in the 2018-2023.  He either finds Alex also trapped there, or Alex plays an important role in getting him back; additionally, they have to break Magneto out of jail for Reasons.  In this option, Armando can have come back or never died at all.  This can deal, allegorically, with issues like the Tuskegee Syphillis Study and the Henrietta Lacks case.

Option 4: X-Men: Apocalypse.  The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse includes Armando as the Horseman of Death, as a reference to his time as a death deity in the comics and because he was the first mutant to die in Shaw’s war, which is really just a modern iteration of En Sabah Nur’s ‘survival of the fittest’ doctrine.  Alex is War, Charles is an unwilling Pestilence, and Erik and Mystique have to lead a group of scared teenagers against Apocalypse and his Horsemen.  This would be a film about Love overcoming the end of all things -- Erik and Raven’s love for Charles would save him, and the connection between Alex and Armando would eventually break them out of Apocalypse’s hold.  Community and solidarity would prevail over the insistent, selfish individualism advocated by Apocalypse, which can provide a look at the idea of solidarity among and within oppressed groups -- like, for LGBT people, the often uneasy coalition between the LGB and the T parts, and stuff like that.

Basically, any of the movies subsequent to XMFC can be reworked to be better, more topical, and more interesting with the addition of Armando Muñoz.  Armando is a potential lynchpin and turning point, and the fact that he was basically thrown out in favor of typical focus on whiteness has been a major contributor to the way that the XMCU has set itself up for failure on its allegorical and narrative levels.

People might say that dealing with the things I’ve mentioned here would make people uncomfortable or make the movie harder to sell, but I’d like to point out that Logan dealt implicitly or explicitly with refugees, the exploitation of female and Latina bodies, and the weaponization and abuse of children, and it has garnered hugely positive reviews and a box office of over $540million worldwide, making it the third most successful X-Men movie ever, and it’s only been out for a month.  

This is doable.  This is something that should’ve been done a long time ago.  And this is something that those in charge of the next set of X-Men films should consider when they sit down to plot out the next phase of the franchise.  The X-Men films are capable of doing incredible things, narratively speaking, if they just step outside the ‘traditional’ superhero mold, either by diverting narrative focus away from white men, explicitly engaging with topical social issues, or both.

Overall, the death of Armando Muñoz is perhaps the clearest example of how a lack of care has made the XMCU into the least successful of the three major superhero movie franchises, and interrogating the what-could-have-beens could pave the way for fixing the very real problems that have dogged the franchise since roughly 2006.

I hope that they do.  We deserve better than we’ve gotten, as the audience, and these characters deserve better as parts of our lives.

As always, Murphy out.

[dancerwrites]

Hope (is but a building block)

SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 83

Written just after the episode and not proofread because it’s fuck-all AM. Title is a work-in-progress, but I don’t give a shit.

Summary: Sometimes people leave and you can't get them back (and sometimes that's not the end of the story)

Warnings: Mentions of suicidal thoughts, all the spoilers, mentions of gore

[Edited and revised version here]

[AO3]

---

Kerrek stands, breathing heavily, the glow from his hammer fading as Raishan’s body falls to the ground, limp. He blinks once, twice, his vision solidifying on Percy’s prone form, his gut slashed open, and Kerrek falls to his knees, paying no mind to the shouts around him.

It’s noise, pointless noise now.

He prays, willing his hands to imbue Percy’s corpse with life, but the magic fails to take hold and so he does what he can. Simple triage, which is something he knows far better than battle.

Vex rushes over, calling for Pike, and Kerrek feels his already-scarred heart breaking even as he dismisses the flashes of memory from his last adventure. Of what could have been, and what wasn’t.

Sometimes allies fall and they don’t get up.

(sometimes you give up on them before giving them a chance)

Part of him envies Vox Machina’s hope, their steadfast belief that they will not lose one of their own.

Part of him wishes he still had that, but a small portion of him is glad he doesn’t.

(being able to let go makes it hurt less, Kerr has found, in his past experiences)

But Pike’s revivify takes hold, and Kerrek feels the invisible barrier that had kept his magic from taking hold suddenly disappear and he pushes life into Percival, even as Vex bursts into loud sobs, layering kisses over Percy’s cheeks and face.

(when Percival’s eyes open, Kerr takes a step back to leave them a modicum of privacy. there are some things not meant to be shared)

Kerrek pushes down more never-quite-forgotten memories of days long gone, and he surveys the rest of the party, counting heads to see that everyone is there.

He sees Scanlan’s pale face, clutched to Vax’s chest, and hears Grog’s shouts as if through a tunnel.

“Fix him! You all have magic, so FIX HIM!”

Kerrek sees Vax’s bowed head, his lips tight and his eyes closed, and he understands. But then the rest of them start back up, and someone says “Vax, you can talk to the Raven Queen, right?” and there are too many memories there, too many parallels, that Kerrek turns to survey the rest of the cave, his heart heavy.

He is met with the sight of dragon corpses and evil magics, the likes of which he is sure he will never be able to comprehend, and Kerrek feels a shiver down his spine as he turns back to the rest of them, who have shifted their focus to Allura, pleading with her to get them out.

Vox Machina, so much younger than himself and so much stronger than he ever was.

Kerrek had tried to make up for his past mistakes, and he was fully prepared to face his death with Raishan, but fate said otherwise. He has some other purpose, and as loathe as he is to continue living sometimes; especially when those who have died deserve it so much less than he himself does, Kerrek will fulfill that destiny.

(he’ll continue doing what he’s done since running away. he'll do what needs to be done)

The teleportation fails and they take what they can from the sanctum, and he finds himself caught unawares by a glyph on the floor that glows and sends a rush of pain through him, his muscles tensing and tightening and his vision whites out in a fiery haze. His ears are filled with the rush of blood that is drowned out by the screams being forced from his body despite his inability to move, until his sight clears and he sees Vax crouching over him, Scanlan’s small form in his arms.

Even as Allura warns them not to approach the glyph for at least ten minutes, Kerrek finds himself gasping, the pain leaving quicker than he had thought it would.

He’s suffered worse, and it’s not important.

(they need to get out, before anything else happens. his duty has always been to keep others safe and he’s not letting that go regardless of what has changed since that fateful day all those years ago. he has grown since then, and learned that there are worse things than physical pain. it will fade; he will persevere)

So when they start heading back, he hears the laughter of the flaming skulls, sees their familiar forms and charges forward, even as beams of sunlight, bullets, and arrows shoot past him. He takes the impact of two flaming lances to his shoulder and leg, and he takes his blows at the skull that has not fallen, smashing it out of the air. He turns back to them, trying not to let his gaze linger on their confused and hurt faces.

“The way is clear,” he says, and he leads them back the way they had come.

When they emerge into the dying sunlight Kerrek takes a glance at the cave behind him and almost regrets it, with the memory it brings to the forefront of his mind, when he last fled from a necromancer’s lair.

He feels a divine rush of assurance that is small, but enough to start thawing the icy coldness that had settled over him in the necromancer’s lair. Kerrek offers a prayer of thanks and follows the rest of them, stopping only when Allura finds a clear place to make her teleportation circle.

And then she and Kima are gone, and Kerrek is staring at the place they vanished, half-wondering if he should run through and follow them.

(he is too slow, too hesitant)

He follows Vox Machina. He listens to their certainties, their hopes, and their silence as they all continue walking away from the hill, from the death emanating off the center of the island. He listens as Keyleth shares what she saw, and he feels a renewed sinking feeling in his chest even as Percy reiterates their plan to her and she locks eyes with each of them individually, her own wide and pleading and never wanting to give up.  

(they may have won this battle with hope, but hope is not everything, and it cannot solve any problem, regardless of how strong it is)

And when they reach the shore, just as they begin searching around for a large enough tree, Keyleth steps up to the edge of the tide, the water lapping at the leather of her boots, her eyes scanning the horizon.

Kerrek sighs, taking two steps toward her before she points out to her right, hand shaking.

“They’re there! Aw, shit! I don’t know if it’s them- it looks like them, I’m sure it’s them-“

He places his hand on her shoulder and, feeling his age, the tiredness in his bones, begs her to give up the meaningless search.

“Oh child, wishing doesn’t make it so.”

(he knows that. he has had more experience than them, and he knows that hope cannot break boulders or move mountains or bring friends back from the dead.)

Sometimes you need to find the strength to move on, to grow out of the fire that passes in and around and through you.

“But there’s something! There’s something out there and it might be something different, but there’s something!”

“Keyleth-“ Percy tries to interject, but Vex has already taken off on her broom, speeding out over the waves set aglow by the setting sun, and Keyleth is giving her directions over their earrings.

“Good, no, a little too far to the left-“

But eventually Vex flies out of range, her and the broom only a speck in the sky, and Keyleth’s break catches in her chest once, twice, before she seems to choke and she collapses into Kerrek’s shoulder, reminiscent of the day before when she had broken down in the Cinder King’s lair.

Hope cannot heal broken hearts, Kerrek thinks.

(he worries, but he holds her close and rocks her gently from side to side, trying to break the truth to her as whispered words in her ear)

“Sometimes people don’t come back,” he says as time draws out, feeling some of her tears seep through his jerkin. “Sometimes people leave and you can’t get them back.”

His mouth starts to move without his urging as he tries to comfort her, tries to help her understand that chance is a very fickle master to turn to.

Still Keyleth finds it in herself to mumble into her earring Vex’s name, the hope inside her like a fire that cannot be put out, and while Kerrek still murmurs his reassurances, she babbles into the earring, asking for something, anything; a sign that they’re alive.

“What?!” Keyleth exclaims, sitting upright in response to some impetus that has the rest of Vox Machina gazing out over the ocean waters. “Oh thank the gods.”

And she collapses into him again, tears flowing down her cheeks in never-ceasing rivulets. Kerrek looks around, wondering what had happened, and he makes eye contact with Vax, who is standing only a few feet behind him.

“My sister said she found them; Kima and Allura,” Vax says, his chest high and his arms strong despite the weight they carried. “They’re on their way back.”

Kerrek gapes for a moment, knowing what he heard but not what to make of it, but he nods and turns away from Vax’s stare, his hand coming to rest on Keyleth’s shoulder, his own words outstripped in importance in mere moments.

Sometimes people leave and you can’t get them back.

(sometimes they leave, but you won’t let them stay gone)

And when they come together and exit the portal to Whitestone, into the chill dusk air, Kerrek thinks he understands the difference between Keyleth and himself.

Kerrek has seen enough of the world to see how hope has failed, but how you can rise from the ashes.

Keyleth (and Vox Machina) have seen enough of the world to be able to hope in everything they believe in, never letting that go until every option is exhausted, ever potential spent.

(Kerrek wonders if he can’t use some of that steadfastness and wonders where his went in the many years since he went adventuring)

He watches and prays in the deepening night, and feels his own spark of hope return to him even as darkness falls and friends hold vigil. 

[dailybiblelessons]

Monday: Reflection on the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Roman Catholic Proper 22 Common Lectionary Proper 17

Complementary Hebrew Scripture from The Writings: 2 Chronicles 12:1-12

There is a parallel passage at 1 Kings 14:21-31.

When the rule of Rehoboam was established and he grew strong, he abandoned the law of the Lord, he and all Israel with him. In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, because they had been unfaithful to the Lord, King Shishak of Egypt came up against Jerusalem with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand cavalry. A countless army came with him from Egypt—Libyans, Sukkiim, and Ethiopians. He took the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem. Then the prophet Shemaiah came to Rehoboam and to the officers of Judah, who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, “Thus says the Lord: You abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak.” Then the officers of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The Lord is in the right.” When the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, saying: “They have humbled themselves; I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance, and my wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. Nevertheless they shall be his servants, so that they may know the difference between serving me and serving the kingdoms of other lands.”

So King Shishak of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house; he took everything. He also took away the shields of gold that Solomon had made; but King Rehoboam made in place of them shields of bronze, and committed them to the hands of the officers of the guard, who kept the door of the king's house. Whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, the guard would come along bearing them, and would then bring them back to the guardroom. Because he humbled himself the wrath of the Lord turned from him, so as not to destroy them completely; moreover, conditions were good in Judah.

Semi-continuous Hebrew Scripture from the Latter Prophets: Jeremiah 2:23-37

How can you say, “I am not defiled,  I have not gone after the Baals”? Look at your way in the valley;  know what you have done— a restive young camel interlacing her tracks,  a wild ass at home in the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind!  Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves;  in her month they will find her. Keep your feet from going unshod  and your throat from thirst. But you said, “It is hopeless,  for I have loved strangers,  and after them I will go.”

As a thief is shamed when caught,  so the house of Israel shall be shamed— they, their kings, their officials,  their priests, and their prophets, who say to a tree, “You are my father,”  and to a stone, “You gave me birth.” For they have turned their backs to me,  and not their faces. But in the time of their trouble they say,  “Come and save us!” But where are your gods  that you made for yourself? Let them come, if they can save you,  in your time of trouble; for you have as many gods  as you have towns, O Judah.

Why do you complain against me?  You have all rebelled against me, says the Lord.

In vain I have struck down your children;  they accepted no correction. Your own sword devoured your prophets  like a ravening lion. And you, O generation, behold the word of the Lord! Have I been a wilderness to Israel,  or a land of thick darkness? Why then do my people say, “We are free,  we will come to you no more”? Can a girl forget her ornaments,  or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me,  days without number.

How well you direct your course  to seek lovers! So that even to wicked women  you have taught your ways. Also on your skirts is found  the lifeblood of the innocent poor, though you did not catch them breaking in. Yet in spite of all these things  you say, “I am innocent;  surely his anger has turned from me.” Now I am bringing you to judgment for saying,  “I have not sinned.” How lightly you gad about,  changing your ways! You shall be put to shame by Egypt  as you were put to shame by Assyria. From there also you will come away  with your hands on your head; for the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust,  and you will not prosper through them.

Complementary Psalm 119:65-72

You have dealt well with your servant,  O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge,  for I believe in your commandments. Before I was humbled I went astray,  but now I keep your word. You are good and do good;  teach me your statutes. The arrogant smear me with lies,  but with my whole heart I keep your precepts. Their hearts are fat and gross,  but I delight in your law. It is good for me that I was humbled,  so that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me  than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

Semi-continuous Psalm 58

Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?  Do you judge people fairly? No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;  your hands deal out violence on earth.

The wicked go astray from the womb;  they err from their birth, speaking lies. They have venom like the venom of a serpent,  like the deaf adder that stops its ear, so that it does not hear the voice of charmers  or of the cunning enchanter.

O God, break the teeth in their mouths;  tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord! Let them vanish like water that runs away;  like grass let them be trodden down and wither. Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime;  like the untimely birth that never sees the sun. Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,  whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done;  they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;  surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

New Testament Epistle Lesson: Hebrews 13:7-21

Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings; for it is well for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food, which have not benefited those who observe them. We have an altar from which those who officiate in the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing—for that would be harmful to you.

Pray for us; we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you very soon.

Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Year C Ordinary 22 Monday

Selections are from Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings copyright © 1995 by the Consultation on Common Texts. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible text is from New Revised Standard Version Bible (NRSV) copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Image credit: Road to Calvary by Jan or Hans van Wechelen Active in Antwerp, 1530-1570 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons [retrieved August 17, 2016], licensed under Creative Commons 3.0