#Doom Patrol writer are you listening.

[robocops-a-christ-allegory]

We can bring back Peacemaker disobeying orders but only the funny ones by having his arc in doom patrol end with like his random superior officer telling him he cant go fight the doom patrol on his own or something and then he immediately shoots the guy in the head and goes off to get beat up by Cliff

#Doom Patrol writer are you listening. #And Cliff like rips his head off or something because this run seems so fucking mean #I do think Peacemaker seeming like a good army boy who relies on authority until someone tells him not to kill people is #like his funniest trait it NEEDS to come back #Nobody realizes Peacemaker doesnt actually care that much until its too late and hes like #ripping the comms out of his helicopter and throwing it into the ocean so he can go shoot at the suicide squad

[babylon5]

miss sachi liking my babylon 5 tweets... who is your favorite character queen

#starstuff.txt #doom patrol writer sh0shana sachi you will listen to me talk about vorlons and negative spirits for 3 hours and you will like it!!!!

[raplinesmoon]

Après Moi, Le Deluge (JHS x F!Reader)

pairing: Hoseok x afab!reader genres/au/rating: angst, smut, some fluff, mafia au, sort of arranged marriage au, exes au, 18+ summary: It was one night. One night where Hoseok sought refuge from the storm outside, from the life he led, from the past that haunted him. And where else does fate lead him but back into your arms?

word count: 8.2k

warnings: the mafia, mentions minor character death, cursing, smoking, alcohol use, use of weapons, strained relationships with parents, mental health issues, mentions threats against people Hoseok cares about, brief, non-graphic depiction of blood and injuries, breakups, makeups, a cameo by one Xu Minghao, Hoseok and OC are both very closed off and bad at communicating, Hoseok is lowkey an asshole for most of this, happy-ish ending, smut warnings: making out, fingering (fem receiving), nipple play, unprotected sex, marking, teeny bit of cockwarming

a/n: Hello it is me, profusely apologising because there is no reason this should have taken this long to write, other than I had the worst case of writer's block ever, but I missed Hoseok and I needed to see this through. This fic is set in the same universe as Doom Boy, my Namjoon mafia fic! You don't necessarily have to read Doom Boy to read this, but it may help some of the moments mentioned here make sense! The title is a reference to a famous saying by King Louis XV of France, or if you're me, season 1 episode 11 of The Originals. I hope you all enjoy <3

listen to the playlist here!

The rain slams down on the pavement, rendering the soles of Hoseok’s shoes even more sodden than they’d previously been. A cold, sticky feeling settles across his spine, and he heaves for breath, wishing he could just stop and take a break. But he can’t. He has to keep moving. Resisting the urge to shiver and warm himself up, he rounds the corner.

The day had started off normal enough. Hoseok had been assigned patrol duty for the day by Namjoon, a task he was more than familiar with. After the collapse of the Kim empire and his father’s death, Namjoon had returned to clean up the family business. And he was doing a damn good job at it, training the younger ones like Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook in how to run a business.

But there was more to this than a business, and Namjoon knew that well enough. Someone had to be around to air out the dirty laundry, to clean up the streets. And who better for the job than Hoseok? 

He was used to it anyway, more comfortable around knives and guns than he’d ever been around people who weren’t Namjoon, Yoongi, or Seokjin. It was partly the reason he’d been sent out tonight, to monitor the slimy activities that took place under the cover of night. 

Yet sometimes, the downpour got the best of Hoseok. He hadn’t been expecting the Choi cronies to spot him, much less for them to be armed. Luckily they were as thick-skulled as Hoseok expected them to be, and he’d been able to craft a quick escape. For the time being.

But it wouldn’t last for long. Hoseok knew the men would be on his tail all night, and as much as he wanted to call for backup, he didn’t feel like bothering Namjoon, Yoongi, or their families, at this time of night. He wouldn’t have had a problem bothering Seokjin, but that fucker had run the moment he’d shot up Namjoon’s father. 

Looking around, he falters. The buildings around him loom ominously, stretching much taller than he’s used to, the lights from the highest floors creating artificial stars against the cloudy backdrop of the sky. Hoseok gathers that he must be in the swanky part of town. He scoffs, knowing from personal experience the rich were no better than the mobs and gangs they pretended to look down upon, licking at their bootstraps whenever the necessity arose.

Still, he decides it’s better to take cover. He spots the sleeping security guard from outside one of the buildings, and slips in, shaking the raindrops from his hair. Making his way to the elevators at the end of the lobby, his mind ran with plans of how he’d clean up the mess with the Choi men in a way that Namjoon would approve of. 

Which is why he misses the other person entering the elevator at the same time as him, instead collapsing against the railing and letting out a loud sigh, rubbing at his eyes.

“H-Hoseok?” the voice that calls out to him is quiet, barely above a whisper. But its familiarity sends a chill down Hoseok’s spine. It’s a voice he thought he’d never hear again.

His eyes open slowly, and he sees his shocked reflection mirrored in the ones directly across from him, eyes that he’d never been able to forget. The way they look at him now is the same way they’d been the last time he saw you, on a similarly cloudy day.

The eyes of his former fiancée.

The doors of the elevator screech shut, the sound doing nothing to drown out the pounding of your heart. The soft tiny plops of raindrops echo on the grey floor, falling from Hoseok’s hair as he freezes at the sound of your voice.

You suck in a breath, lungs desperately searching for air, unable to squeak out anything beyond his name. Brows furrowing, you check him for any signs of injury, relieved when you find nothing but his blank eyes blinking back at you. You didn’t have to ask him where he’d been tonight. Both of you already knew.

It infuriates you that even after everything, after all this time, he still manages to have this effect on you. You hate how you can’t take your eyes off the lean curve of his neck, or the tiny mole above his heart-shaped smile.

A chill runs down your spine, despite having never stepped foot out in the rain. 

“Why are you…” your throat feels heavy, struggling to get the words out, to ask him why he ended up here of all places. Especially when you made it clear you never wanted to see him again after the last time.

“Choi’s men were tailing me, I had to get them off my back,” he barks, immediately regretting his harsh tone when he looks into your weary eyes, on the verge of tears.

“I’m sorry,” he adds on, more gently this time. “If I’d have known, I would never…”

Never what? Never managed to infiltrate the one place you thought you could be free of him, from the past the two of you shared?

Your shoulders slump against the panel, and you realize you’d never pressed the button to go up, too consumed by his presence. Finally managing to muster up the focus, you turn away, hearing the elevator creak to life.

“You’re always sorry. How can I be sure that this time, you mean it?”

Hoseok is annoyed. First of all, this damn elevator is taking nearly too long to go anywhere, and he longs for escape from this metallic box that’s imprisoning you both. Second of all, your words cut at him, sharper than any knife and hotter than any bullet any of Choi’s men could have sent his way tonight.

As far as he remembers, you’d been the one to end it. You’d been the one to walk away from your arrangement.

He doesn’t know why he grits his teeth, biting down to combat the throbbing pain in his temples. You were supposed to be gone, your goodbye delivered in the same way the designer bags and packages piled up at your doorstep - neat, polished, shallow, the ties that had brought you together unraveling before they’d even had a chance to be joined properly. 

Unfinished business. That’s what you were. And Hoseok hated unfinished business. But somehow, he’d never managed to hate you. You’d never given him a fair chance.

. . .

Hoseok shrugged the wife beater over his head with a grunt, immediately turning around to see if he’d woken up his sleeping companion, but she remained unfazed, her soft snores echoing into the pillow. 

He lets his eyes linger over her body appreciatively one last time before he slips on his leather jacket and is out the door. For a brief moment, his hand twitches, yearning to reach into his pocket and call Namjoon for old times’ sake, detailing every last detail of his lascivious romp. The thought is abandoned immediately, Hoseok’s mood souring at the thought of his former best friend. Namjoon had no trouble leaving all of them behind, so why should he even bother? Instead, he reaches into his other pocket, his frenzied emotions finally calming down when he pulls out the lighter. Ducking under an awning, he checks his surroundings for anything suspicious before affirming that the coast is clear, lighting up and taking a drag. The smoke drifts away on the nighttime breeze, and Hoseok follows, roaming the city streets. 

It’s lonely at this hour, not another soul in sight, but Hoseok prefers it that way. Gone are the days when he and his friends would run through the city, stealing cars and honking horns at everyone for fun. Now, shit had hit the fan big time, and there was no room for fun anymore. With Namjoon gone, Hoseok, along with Seokjin and Yoongi, had been sucked into the tangled web of duties he’d left behind, each stepping up in their own way.

Holding a gun in his hands for the first time had been a sobering experience for Hoseok. It rattled him that if he pressed down on the trigger, so many things could change in a split second. He’d heard the higher-ups in the organization rave with glee about how much fun it was putting the city’s other families in line, Namjoon’s father at the head of them. And for a brief moment, Hoseok understood what it was that Namjoon had run away from. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still pissed off about it though. 

His lips turn up in a smile when he takes in the graffiti on the building in front of him, thinking back to his younger, more rebellious self, before faltering. Someone else was there. 

He wonders if you’re cold, the thin satin gown doing nothing to protect you from the chill, and he wants to laugh at the contrast between his well-worn leather jacket and the jewels dripping from your ears. They must cost a few thousands of dollars, money he’d never had in his pocket. His eyes scan around for someone, anyone – a boyfriend, or a husband maybe. But you’re alone.

Nobility has never been Hoseok’s forte - Namjoon and Seokjin had always been the womanizers, and poor Yoongi had been in love with the same woman for over ten years, but he clears his throat, prompting you to turn around, eyes widening at your company.

If he catches a glimpse of unshed tears in your eyes, he doesn’t say anything. 

“Kids these days, huh? They’ll do anything to cause a little chaos,” he quips, a sinking feeling building up in his chest when you don’t respond.

“Ma’am,” he grapples with whether he should ask for your name, “do you need me to walk you home?”

“Did you read it?” your voice is quieter than he expects, yet he draws closer, wanting to hear more of it. Coming to stand beside you, he takes in the captivating features of your face, made all the more alluring by the shadows cast across them.

Following your gaze, he looks at the mural on the wall. A giant wave, Hosukai-style, crashing into a set of words. “After me, the flood,” your voice whispers, and Hoseok feels a rush of emotion at the way you say it, his mind circling back to everything that had happened in the past few years - the dark cloud that had settled over all their lives with Namjoon leaving, the city’s underbelly coming to life, crawling out of the woodwork. 

“I have to go,” you interrupt him, heels clacking against the pavement, before Hoseok’s gaze turns sharply on you, the desperation in his eyes begging you not to go. Come sunrise, he’d be forced back into the same grim routine, but right now, it felt nice, standing here with you.

“Will you be okay getting home alone?” he asks, grappling for any chance to prolong the moment.

“My driver is around the corner,” you tell him. “Thank you for keeping me company, –”

“Hoseok,” he fills you in, his chest aching with the desire to ask for your own name, but you’re already gone.

. . .

Hoseok wakes up the next morning to the rattling of the blinds, the sunlight causing him to immediately shut his eyes and bite back a groan. There was only one person who’d have access to his apartment at this hour – and exploit it.

“Eomma?” he rasps, burrowing his head further into the sheets. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you forget Hoseok-ah? Hurry up and get dressed, everyone’s waiting! You have five minutes.”

Forget what? His mother’s fussing continues in the background as she leafs through his closet, no doubt trying to find him a suitable outfit amongst the many pairs of ripped denim and oversized shirts he prefers on a day-to-day basis. Hoseok wracks his brain, trying to remember what could have called for such an occasion, but comes up empty, his mother’s stern warning echoing in his ears. 

As per usual, if it had anything to do with the organization, he’d do best not to ignore it.

Slipping on the stark white shirt and tie she’d chosen, the fabric itches against his skin, and he rakes his fingers through his hair, attempting to comb the mess into something somewhat presentable. He’s sure there was little to be done about the bags under his eyes, and the faint smell of tobacco emanating from him, and hoped that whoever these important guests were, they wouldn’t catch onto his late-night activities from the previous day. 

Stumbling into the hallway, Hoseok hears the faint chatter of voices, his father’s bellowing laugh a stark contrast to his mother’s delicate titter, and is immediately confused. Conversations with the bosses of the organization weren’t usually so… enthusiastic. 

When he rounds the corner to his living room, he stops in his tracks. Sitting next to his mother and father is another older couple he doesn’t recognize. They reek of wealth that his family could never even imagine, he notes, the polished Italian leather of the man’s shoes and the older woman’s massive diamond ring speaking for themselves. But he could honestly care less. Because to their left side, sitting on his favorite armchair, is you. The woman from in front of the mural. You’re clad in a simple sundress today, but you still manage to be nothing short of breathtaking against the backdrop of the sun’s rays. 

“There you are, Hoseok!” his father beckons him over jovially, but Hoseok remains frozen. “This is Mr. and Mrs. ____, and their daughter ____.”

Hoseok’s turns his gaze to his father, watching him recoil at the sharpness present in his son’s expression, a thousand unspoken questions lingering on his lips as to why these people were here, what purpose they had in his home, his space.

“We’d like for the two of you to get to know each other,” your mother speaks up with a smile so wide, he’d assume it’d been plastered onto her face. 

“Why?” he finally manages to whistle out in between grit teeth, looking only at you. But you don’t meet his eyes. Instead, your gaze is looking out his window, at the city beyond, the same loneliness from last night ever present in your eyes. 

“Because,” his father continues uncertainly, fidgeting the glass of wine in his hands, “___ is going to be your wife.”

You can feel Hoseok’s eyes glaring into the back of your head as he follows you wordlessly down the hallway. Moments pass before you come to a stop outside your apartment, and you hear the faint stumble of Hoseok’s boots as he stops unexpectedly in his tracks. His warm breath fans against the back of your neck for a brief moment before he straightens with a grunt, and you resist the urge to shiver, despite having never stepped foot into the rain.

The lock clicks, and he follows you inside. You can hear him rustle behind you as he struggles to remove his coat and boots, but you look straight ahead, hoping the darkness can hide how your fingernails are digging into your palm. 

“I won’t stay long,” his low voice breaks the silence. “Just until the storm passes.”

“Please,” you manage to muster up your most polite sounding voice. “Have a seat. I can get you something, maybe some water, o-or a cup of tea…” 

You want to curse your voice for wobbling in his presence, hating the way he still affected you even after all this time apart. Your brain bades you to walk away instinctively, and so you pad into the kitchen, wanting to put distance in between you and Hoseok so he can’t hear the rapid fluttering of your heart. The noise pounds in your ears as you rattle around in the cupboards, cursing when you realized you’d forgotten to turn on the light. It seemed embarrassing to do it now, and so you reach aimlessly, looking for some coffee. 

The pot bubbles, and in mere moments, you’re clutching two steaming mugs, finding your way back onto the living room. Hoseok has settled himself onto your couch, taking extra care not to rest his soaked shirt against the back of it, instead hunched over and dangling an unlit cigarette from his fingertips.

“Sorry, I didn’t know if you’d be okay with me…” he gestures to it, twirling it around in his fingers. “I know you don’t like the smell.”

You’re unsure whether to be touched that he remembers, or uneasy at the way he says it so monotonously, as if you’d still judge him for something so mundane when so much else had happened in between you.

“Here,” you set down the coffee in front of him, taking the seat directly opposite. “It’ll help take the edge off.”

The warm liquid burns your throat as you rush to take a sip, and you nearly sputter trying to keep it down. Over the rim of your cup, Hoseok remains frozen, his own mug steaming and untouched. His dark eyes bore into you, studying your face, and you feel your cheeks begin to burn.

If he notices the bags under your eyes, he says nothing. The same way he says nothing when he probably remarks at your simplistic clothes and lack of jewelry, a far cry from the expensive dresses and diamonds he’d been used to seeing you in. 

“Were you about to go out?” Hoseok asks, and the question catches you off guard. “I’m sorry if I stopped you from going somewhere.”

“Or meeting someone.” The last part is a hushed whisper, mumbled underneath his breath, in the hopes that you wouldn’t catch him. But you had. You wish he’d stop apologizing. It makes you feel guilty when you shouldn’t be, like he’s trying and you’re shutting him out, when in reality it’d been the exact opposite. 

All of a sudden, your phone buzzes to life, a text message lighting up the screen. You freeze when you see who it’s from, quickly snatching your phone and cursing in your head. Minghao was a friend of a friend, the two of you running into each other a number of times over the past couple of weeks, before he’d finally plucked up the courage to ask you for a coffee date.

You’d told him you’d think about it, and now here he was, lighting up your phone to ask you about your decision. Of course, how was he supposed to know that the reason you’d been holding off was the very man sitting in your living room, whom you’d almost married, and still couldn’t seem to let go?

Clutching your phone to your chest, you turn it to silent, setting it down beside you. Hoseok’s eyes are alight with curiosity, his lips turned up in a faint smirk, as though he’s remembering his statement from earlier. 

You take another sip, willing the caffeine to give you some strength, to rein in the bare threads of this conversation back to your control.

“How are your parents?”

Hoseok is taken aback by the question. He hadn’t expected it from you. There had once been a time where you’d been bright eyed and eager, wanting to know everything about him, bombarding him with question after question every time you were together. And yet somehow, he’d never managed to give you the time of day, always giving brusque answers and half-hearted excuses that there were other things that needed his attention.

He knew it was just a poor attempt to fill the silence, but his heart lurches at the thought that there’s so much you don’t know anymore. Namjoon coming back, Seokjin running away, the life that Hoseok knew being turned inside out. What’s more unsettling is the fact that he yearns to tell you, despite knowing he’d lost the privilege to do so.

“They’re okay. Doing well,” he lies through his teeth. “We all are. How about yours?”

He thinks it’s an innocent question, but he watches your fingers blanch as you grip the mug so tight, he thinks it’ll break. 

“I wouldn’t know,” you whisper out softly, and his heart stops. “I haven’t spoken to them since– you know.”

Hoseok feels dizzy at your confession. What do you mean you hadn’t spoken to them? Suddenly, it all begins to make sense in his head. The fact that he hadn’t expected to run into you tonight, because he hadn’t expected you to live alone, with your austere clothes and hair tossed up into a messy bun. It was so different from the woman he’d known, the dazzling one he’d written off as hollow in his mind, the one he was incapable of forming a real relationship with. 

And here you were, living the exact opposite of the cozy life he’d painted for you in his head. He thought you’d be fine, that you’d move on, your family offering you up to the next prospect that came along. And you’d accept them, like you’d accepted Hoseok with all his flaws, not caring that he could barely give you what you deserved.

His thoughts flash back to the last conversation you had, tears streaming down your face as you sobbed.

I can’t live like this anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and he watches annoyance flash across your face. He knows he’s done nothing but apologize this entire time, but it probably isn’t even worth a damn. No consolation would ever make up for losing someone that meant everything to you. He’d known that when Namjoon had run away.

“Hey,” you set the mug down, leaning over the table. For a brief second, he sees your hand reach out blindly in the darkness, almost as if it’s searching for his, but you withdraw just as quickly. “I’m okay. I really am.”

“I wish you’d stop pretending,” Hoseok blurts out, and he watches you jolt in surprise. “Why do you always have to pretend like everything’s okay, like nothing affects you? Is it the society training? Or do you really just not care about what happened at all?”

You chew the inside of your cheek, mulling over Hoseok’s words in your head.

“The same way you can pull the trigger on someone and be able to lie in your bed and fall asleep,” you seethe, a venom that Hoseok has never heard in your voice. 

“I knew who you were Hoseok. I knew what kind of man I was marrying. You think it didn’t affect me? You think I wasn’t scared out of my wits because of what you did, what other people could do to you?” 

You rise up, palms quivering as you open and close them, strolling over to the window. Hoseok watches your shoulders shake before they slump completely, and he knows that you’re crying.

He’s up before he can stop himself, feet ready to walk out the door. He’d fucked up the moment he’d stayed in the elevator with you, all the ugly feelings between you coming to a head, ones he’d struggled so hard to keep buried. 

But his body betrays him, instead leading him right behind. He pauses until he’s just close enough that if he reaches out, he’d be able to grab your arm and turn you around to face him. But he waits instead.

“I did what I did because I realized I was chasing a ghost,” you huff out, resignation in your tone. “I wanted you to be someone you weren’t. I wanted you to care so badly. But you didn’t. I don’t want any part in whatever you’re caught up in, Hoseok. Whatever has a hold on you so badly that you couldn’t even look beyond your cynicism to give me a chance.”

“I just want to survive.”

Hoseok grips the bathroom sink, knuckles turning white. His cell phone clatters on the counter beside him and he has to keep from heaving. This whole thing was a mess – no one had counted on Namjoon coming back. Even less so on him refusing to take up his father’s mantle. And so the threats continued – the words from the anonymous phone call still ringing in his ear, your name echoing across the line.

While he didn’t know what he felt for you, or whether he could even marry you, Hoseok knew you were an innocent person. You didn’t deserve to be the victim of your parents’ greed, them using you to bury their secrets in the hands of even more powerful people. You deserved gardens full of flowers and meals together every night, not coming home to an empty bed. Or a fiancé who couldn’t spare a moment during the entire night to even dance with you. 

He’s so lost in his brooding that he doesn’t hear the door the click behind him, the soft tapping of heels on the floor coming up behind him. 

“Is something wrong?” you ask him gently, and he feels the bristle of your hand on his jacket. 

So much was wrong. You couldn’t even begin to understand. 

“It’s fine,” he clears his throat, straightening up to adjust his jacket. “I’ll need to leave soon. I can have the car stay behind for you.”

The farther away he got from you, the better. That way no one could hurt you – or him. 

“I can go with you,” your voice echoes from beside him, “I was getting tired anyway.”

Hoseok turns to face you, watching you recoil at the red rimming his eyes, the bags underneath them becoming even more prominent in the dim lighting of the bathroom.

He doesn’t know what possesses him to reach for the single strand of hair that has managed to escape your polished bun, but he watches you suck in a breath, lips parting in surprise.

Before he knows it, your face is drawing in closer, and he can smell the rosé on your breath. Your lips barely ghost against his, and he has to fight every nerve ending not to grab your hand and run away from here, somewhere where he wasn’t Hoseok, and you weren’t ____, and you didn’t need protecting from everything around you – most of all him. 

His paralysis slowly melts away and he’s pushing you away without realizing, the door to the bathroom suddenly materialising in front of him. 

“Like I said,” he doesn’t bother turning around, knowing his heart would twist at whatever expression he found on your face. “I’ll have the car stay behind for you.”

Before you can wrestle with the weight of your confession to Hoseok, a hand is clamping over your mouth. Caught in a silent scream, you turn your eyes to see Hoseok lifting a finger to his lips, willing you to stay quiet. And that’s when you hear them. The voices.

Raucous laughter echoes through the hallway, tinged with malevolent glee. The air around you feels cold, a breeze at the base of your spine, and you instinctively curl into Hoseok.

“Come out, come out,” the disembodied voice cackles from the hallway. “Are you hiding from us, Jung? Found some poor rich girl to use as a body shield?”

Your hand seizes Hoseok’s wrist clamped against your mouth, nails digging into his arm, the fear taking over. Slowly, his wrist lowers, slipping to take your hand in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you trust me?” 

He’s so quiet you almost can’t tell he’s said it at all. You nod reluctantly, eyes continuing to dart to the door.

“Go hide underneath the bed. Lock the door. I may or may not come back but please stay inside. Don’t come looking for me.”

His voice is clipped, the faint hint of nerves colouring his tone, but his eyes are filled with a resoluteness you know all too well. You’d spent the better part of over a year staring into them, hoping they’d look back. And now they finally were. 

“Be safe.” Your voice comes out louder than you’d intended, but there’s no anger in Hoseok’s expression. All he does is nod, and then you turn, stumbling down the hallway to your room, never bothering to look back until you hear the door click behind you.

. . .

Hoseok’s heart pounds in his chest, a strange pain settling in his ribs – he never expected to be in this position again. His sense of duty had always been his biggest downfall – and while you were no longer his, he owed it to you to make sure he gave you exactly what you’d asked him for – the chance to survive, to come out on the other side of this. That’s why he had to settle this once and for all.

Choi’s cronies linger at the other end of the hallway, too dumb to notice Hoseok slipping out of your door, reaching for the revolver he’d kept hidden in his coat pocket. A chill settles in his bones as he runs his fingers over the metal.

The brief events of the night play over in his head – the rain pounding against the pavement, the ding of the elevator, the now-cold mug of coffee that sat on your coffee table. And then there was you – your eyes, the softness of your skin, the faint smell of gardenias that lingered on your skin.

And it hits Hoseok that while he was very much alive – he’d been in mourning. Mourning for the friendships he’d never be able to recover, for the youth that had been taken away from him. But most of all, Hoseok’s heart mourns for the relationship he’d never gotten to have with you. The glass walls he’d so carefully put up around himself shatter, making way for a torrential deluge. 

After me, the flood.

He remembers the first night you’d met, how he’d been drawn to you without even trying, the portrait of the wave. He remembers the months that passed afterwards, where you drew closer to him and he drew back. He remembers the regret he’d buried deep in his heart for not kissing you back the night of the gala, not knowing he’d never get another chance.

But most of all, he remembers the somber expression on your face the day you’d ended things, pressing the engagement ring back into his hands, the very same ring that was still sitting in the first drawer of his nightstand. 

Choi’s men finally perk up, noticing Hoseok’s solitary figure lingering at the end of the hallway, smirks twisting on their grotesque faces. A shot rings out, and Hoseok thinks of you now, hiding under your bed. And then he charges.

The alleyway was grim at this time of day, the sunlight barely able to reach beyond the towering skyscrapers, the clouds casting everything in grey. Rain fell softly from the sky. You clutch your coat tighter around you, unable to stop looking at the mural of the wave.

So much had changed since you’d first seen it. And yet it was still the same.

You know Hoseok from the thud of his boots against the pavement, coming up beside you. His head turns, an eyebrow raised in your direction, wondering why you’d asked to meet him here of all places.

You avoid his eyes, fingers clasping around the blue velvet in your pocket. His eyes widen with surprise when he sees the box, confusion marring his handsome face. 

A knot forms in your chest when you watch the confusion turn into alarm as you press the box into his hand, the dazzling diamond no longer on your left finger.

“I don’t understand,” he grunts, breath visible in the cold air.

“We can’t do this anymore, Hoseok. I can’t do this. I can’t live like this.”

“Was it something that I did?” he questions you, desperation creeping into his voice.

You scoff, watching him flinch, pain on his face. 

“No, it’s the opposite. It’s what you haven’t ever been able to do. It’s been an entire year, Hoseok. I’ve watched you answer every phone call that comes your way, disappear into the night to do god knows what, run whenever your friends call. And in that entire time, have you ever thought about us? About the future?”

You take a deep breath.

“I know that neither of us chose this, but Hoseok, we were engaged. Did that mean anything to you?”

He squares his shoulders, fists clenching at his sides, a tick in his jaw.

“You don’t understand. I-I’m not good for you, ___. I dont think I’ll ever be. There’s too much that’s happened, too much I’ve lost. But please don’t walk away like this.

“I thought it’d be enough,” you whisper, and Hoseok freezes. You didn’t know he’d heard you.

“I thought me loving you would be enough for the both of us. But it’s not. I need more. I need someone who I know will come home to me every night. But what I need even more than that, is for you to let me walk away so I can breathe again. So I can be myself.”

Your eyes are just as sad as the first time Hoseok saw them, and all of a sudden, you remark at how stagnant the two of you had been together.

“Hoseok please, I know I can’t ask you to do it if you love me, but if you’ve ever cared about me, even the tiniest bit, let me go.”

You watch him open the box, gazing at the ring. Moments pass by before he slips it into his own pocket, his eyes flitting to the wave as he gives you a small smile, the most genuine one you’d ever seen.

“Goodbye, ____. 

Hoseok’s fist rattles against the door, before he slumps over, heaving for breath. The pain in his side licks at him like the flames of a fire. He hisses when he presses a hand to it, eyes widening when it comes away covered in blood. Those fuckers had managed to get him. Shit.

His eyes are about to close when the door springs open, the wide eyes of Kim Namjoon taking in his battered figure. 

“Hobi, what the fuck?” Namjoon seethes, offering him an arm and pulling him inside. Slinging an arm around Hoseok’s shoulder, the two of them hobble to Namjoon’s kitchen, the burning in Hoseok chest causing him to let out a loud groan.

“Hyun is sleeping,” Namjoon chastises him, and Hoseok bites his tongue, remembering that this Namjoon was dealing with a pregnant wife and a toddler. “You gonna tell me what the hell happened, or do I have to force it out of you?”

“I made a mistake, Namjoon. I went somewhere I shouldn’t have tonight. I fucked up, but I-I didn’t mean to I swear…”

Hoseok feels himself shake as the words pour out, the ruined mission the furthest thing from his mind. He tells Namjoon everything – from being tailed to running into to you, to how he’d left, not knowing whether you were okay or not. 

“That was a dick move,” Namjoon huffs.

“Excuse me?” Hoseok looks up at his best friend, who looks more pissed off than he’s ever seen him. 

“I said what I said. That was a dick move, just leaving her like that.”

“I don’t need a lecture on running away from you, Namjoon-ah.”

Namjoon wipes away the blood on his side, and Hoseok bites his tongue at the sting of the alcohol, before slumping into the chair next to him. 

“You’re an idiot, Jung Hoseok. You’ve been so afraid of letting yourself feel things for so long, and I know it’s because you think that everyone around you is going to leave, or that you’ll lose them. But I’m telling you right now, that’s the stupidest thing you could ever do.”

“You have to let yourself just be, Hobi. Just let go. Enjoy things - life, your friends, your family. Be open to the possibility of love. It’s the only thing that can keep the darkness away.”

Namjoon’s voice shrinks when he says the last line, and Hoseok knows his friend is far off in his own mind, battling the demons that plague him. 

“I think I’m too far gone for that, Namjoon,” Hoseok tells him. “Maybe some of us weren’t meant for happiness. Maybe some of us needed to make sacrifices so others could live the lives they wanted to.”

“That’s a damn lie if I’ve ever heard one, Hoseok.” Namjoon striaghtens, rising up from the chair. “I know you’ve been angry at me for leaving, for keeping you all in the dark. I know how much it hurts to not be able to share your happiest moments with people you love. And I’m sorry for that. But you have a chance to change things.”

“Listen Hobi,” Namjoon crouches down to his level. “I want to be the best man at your wedding – I want to be there for you in all the ways you didn’t get to do for me. This is my way of making amends, but you need to fix whatever this is between you two.”

“What makes you think she’ll even take me back? I was awful to her… god, she didn’t deserve that Joon. She deserves so much better.”

“Do you love her?” Namjoon asks him, and Hoseok is shocked when he doesn’t even have to pause to think about it. He wants to start over, to be by your side, to have a chance to love you properly this time around. 

“Second chances come when you least expect them, Hobi. Think about what would have happened if you hadn’t stepped out into the rain last night. And don’t let it happen again.”

The knock at the door startles you, your phone clattering to the floor. Swearing under your breath, you pick it up, perusing the message from Minghao once again. He was nothing if not persistent. And Hoseok was never coming back. You’d convinced yourself of that.

It’d been over a week since he’d left you that night - the promise to keep you safe burrowing its way into your heart. And then radio silence. You’d heard the gunshots in the hallway, but when you’d opened the door, no one was there, the only evidence of the showdown being the faint splatters of blood on the wall. When the police had questioned you, you’d left Hoseok’s name out of it – those words echoing in your mind, instilling a false sense of loyalty in you.

Why did you think things would be different this time around? It’d been foolish to assume that Hoseok thought anything more of you. But you couldn’t forget the look in his eyes, the gentle touches, the way he’d promise he would never let anything happen to you, and you fell for him all over again.

Throwing your phone aside, you grumble as you make your way to the door, making a mental note to respond to Minghao later, agreeing to the date.

Swinging it open, you freeze when you see who’s on the other end. Hoseok, looking worse for wear with bruises on his jaw and a nasty cut on his forehead, nervously twirling a tiny bouquet of flowers in his hand.

You’re dumbfounded - unable to speak as you take him in, his dark, inquisitive eyes gazing into your shocked ones. 

“You better let me in, ____,” he says with a grin. “Or the neighbours are gonna think I did something really bad this time.”

Wordlessly, you open the door to allow him to enter, watching as he slips off his coat and shoes, an exact repeat of a week ago. You watch him, trying to open your mouth and say something, ask him anything, but nothing will come out. 

“These are for you,” Hoseok nearly shoves the bouquet in your hands and you watch him rub at the back of his neck, his ears reddening.

“Are you okay Hoseok?” you finally manage to ask him, setting the flowers on your coffee table. Your concern wins out over your confusion once again, but the whole scene is odd – him, smiling in your apartment, the late afternoon sunlight casting half his angular face in a mysterious shadow.

“Just a little nick to my side,” he lifts his shirt up, your eyes widening at the bandages on his abdomen. “But actually, I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay since the day I let you walk away, and I can’t live with it anymore.”

You take a step back, unable to breathe. The space in between you seems to have lessened considerably, and you can make out every delicate detail of his face. Dizzy, you put some distance in between the two of you.

“Everything hurts, ___. It hurts because I look at you and I feel like I can’t breathe anymore, knowing how much pain I put you through. It hurts knowing that you’re so kind, so understanding of someone like me, when I don’t deserve it at all. And what hurts the most is knowing that I love you, and I’ve been lying to myself this entire time because I’m afraid you’ll leave just like everyone else, but I lost you anyway.”

Hoseok’s voice cracks on the last words, and you watch him sway, gripping onto your counter for support.

“I thought it was just me this entire time,” you finally manage to look him in the eyes, tears spilling out of your own. “I thought I was crazy, because ever since you walked out that door a week ago, all I’ve been doing is waiting for you to come back.”

“I’m here,” Hoseok closes the gap between you, arms wrapping around you. You breathe in the faint scent of tobacco on his leather jacket, mixed with the spice of his cologne. “And I’m not leaving. Not this time.”

You grip his lapels, before your arms come up to wrap around his neck, running your fingers through the soft hair at his nape. 

“What if it’s not different this time around?” you whisper into his neck. “What if nothing changes?”

“What if it is?” his low voice rumbles into your hair. “Can you trust me, ___? One more time?”

You take his hand in yours, bringing it to your chest, his lips parting in awe at the fluttering of your heartbeat.

“Only you can do that to me,” you say softly, a smile gracing your lips. 

Before you know it, Hoseok’s lips are crashing against yours, and you can feel him release a euphoric sigh, groaning into your mouth. It’s slow, tentative in the way he waits for your body to respond, never pushing more than you’re comfortable with. Eventually, even the small bit of distance in between you becomes too much to bear. You card your fingers into his hair, pulling slightly at the strands, warmth blossoming in your chest.

It feels too short when he pulls away all too soon, lips tinged with red and eyes dark with something that sends a shiver down your spine.

“I’ve wanted to do that ever since the night of the gala,” he rasps, warmth blooming in your chest at his confession. “You were—, I mean you still are, breathtaking.”

You can feel the rapid beat of his heart, his pulse point right there below your fingertips, and you reach for his hand, watching his entire body soften at your touch. 

“Come with me,” you ask him, eyes turning down the hallway to your bedroom. “We have a lot of lost time to make up for. 

Hoseok tries to ignore the rapid rushing of blood in his ears, his focus narrowing to your head resting on his shoulder, the two of you looking out at the city together for the last little while from your bed. It’s somewhere he never imagined he’d be, but he’d felt the ice around his heart melt the moment he’d finally kissed you for real, warmth filling his veins.

And despite relishing in your presence, it was spiking to a fever pitch. He’d tasted you, and now he couldn’t get enough. All it takes is a brief moment for you to look in his eyes, and he’s pulling you into him once again, mouth hard on yours, unable to resist the desire for more, more, more. 

You whine into his mouth, hands fisting at the edge of his shirt, struggling to pull it over his head. He uses one hand to pin both arms behind you, reaching over with the other to hike your dress up to your stomach, finally peeling it off, and you lie back, eyes alight with desire as you take him in. 

He kisses you again, his lean body hovering over yours, hands roaming everywhere – your arms, up your neck, and on your thighs. He inches higher and higher, fingers ghosting over your core.

“Hoseok please,” you whimper, digging your nails into his shoulder blades. “I can’t wait anymore.”

You part your thighs for him, and he wastes no time, pulling your soaked underwear to the side and dipping his fingers into your arousal. He presses another hard kiss to your lips, catching your moans in his mouth while he works you open, leaving you trembling underneath him.

You whine when his fingers leave you, clenching around nothing, coming up to cup your exposed breasts in both hands while he licks and sucks at your nipples.

“Fuck,” he groans against your chest. “How are you so perfect? How are you even mine?”

His voice breaks, and you mouth at his jaw, mirroring his actions until purple bruises begin to bloom in the spots where your lips previously were.

“I’m yours,” you nip at his bottom lip. “Whether you like it or not.”

“Believe me,” he smirks. “I like it. I like it a lot actually. Let me show you how much.”

With adept skill, he manages to remove your panties in seconds, throwing them to the wall. The clinking sound of his belt drives you mad, and your hands join his, the two of you awkwardly fumbling to remove it.

You feel your mouth go dry when his cock springs free, and he chuckles at the depraved look in your eyes.

“Some other time, love,” he whispers, voice lowering a few octaves. “Right now, I need to feel you.”

You gasp when he pushes in, and he pauses, wondering if it’s too much, but you nod, letting him know it’s okay. He thrusts shallowly, before pushing in all the way, watching you squirm underneath him while rutting your hips.

“Move, please,” you beg him, and he obliges, hiking one leg up over his shoulder to open you up for him, the wet sounds of your pussy accompanying the fluid snap of his hips. His knuckles grip the headboard, turning white while he pins you underneath him, unable to take his eyes off the way your tits bounce with every thrust. His hands grip at your ass, every jerk of his hips an excuse to hold you tighter, until he can see your skin redden underneath his fingers. 

“Oh my god, Hoseok, I can’t–, it’s too much,” you groan, rocking against him in an attempt to quell the sparks underneath your skin, lighting you up like a livewire.

“Come for me,” he grunts, trapping your clit in between his fingers, rubbing tight circles until you snap, seeking his lips once again, your orgasm flooding your entire body like a wave. Hoseok speeds up his thrusts to join you, roaring when he feels himself explode, before slumping against you, chest heaving with the weight of his breaths. 

Moments pass like this, him remaining inside you while he burrows into the crook of your neck, his warm breath fanning your damp skin. Eventually he pulls out of you with a soft whine, brushing away the sweat-soaked strands of hair at your temple, before rising. 

You trap his wrist in your hand, panic settling in. He watches your expression change and immediately stiffens, cradling you against his chest.

“That expression you always talk about, the flood. I-, I looked it up. And I know the life I have isn’t ideal, and maybe things will only get harder, but I promise I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. I don’t want to live out the rest of my life not caring anymore.”

“Do you know what I was thinking of that night, looking at the wave?” you mumble in his ear, and he gazes at you inquisitively, watching the way your skin glows under the moonlight as you take a breath.

“My whole life, people have forced me into this box, this image, of someone they want me to be – the perfect daughter, the perfect wife. It’s been suffocating. All I wanted that night was a taste of freedom - that feeling of happiness you have on a beach, feeling the waves crash at your feet. And then I saw you.”

Hoseok leaves a kiss in your hair, his fingers intertwining with yours. Briefly, his heart drops at the absence of the ring he’d given you on your finger, but he knows when you’re ready, it’ll be waiting for you. He’ll be waiting for you. And the two of you will step into the flood, together. 

a/n pt. 2:  Okay long ending note here. First, please visualize this Hoseok with the undercut ;) Second, I don't normally say this but the writer's block really got me good with this one, so I apologize if it's not up to my usual standards (pls be kind tho). And third and last, this fic definitely would never exist if it weren't for the wonderful Guarded series by Ana (@xjoonchildx). I think about it more than is necessary and this is definitely my tribute to the impeccable Captain Jung.

As always, any comments or feedback are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi <3

taglist (pls let me know if you want to be removed): @jalexad @secfir @hobi-love @back2bluesidex @temptingempress

#bts #bangtanbathhouse #micdropnet #kvanity #bts fanfiction #bts smut #bts scenarios #bts reactions #bts au #bts imagines #bts fic #bts fanfic #hoseok #jung hoseok #hoseok x reader #hoseok x you #j hope #jhope #j hope x reader #jhope x reader #hoseok smut #j hope smut #jhope smut #hoseok angst #hoseok imagine #j hope angst #j hope imagine #hoseok fic #j hope fic #jhope angst

[augustheart]

DC Pride 2023 Tribute to Rachel Pollack

This is a transcription of the text that appears at the end of DC Pride, written by a variety of authors in memory of trailblazing writer Rachel Pollack. I've done my best to copy everything exactly as it was written, and I apologize for any errors. It's over 3,000 words, so I'm going to put it under a cut outside of the foreword. The rest of the tributes are in plain text and not italicized except in places where they were by the original authors.

(If you would like a PDF of the following transcription, one is available here.)

“On April 7, 2023, the legendary writer and Tarot expert Rachel Pollack passed at age 77. Her work for DC's Vertigo imprint—including the celebrated Vertigo Tarot deck and a long run on Doom Patrol that was a deep influence on the property's recent HBO Max series—was profoundly meaningful for generations of comics fans. She was a trailblazing trans woman in comics and sci-fi communities that were frequently male-dominated, and her lifelong love of both superheroes in particular and the comics medium in general allowed her to confidently turn their storytelling tropes inside out, truly queering her comics in every sense of the word.

In the months before her passing, the editors of DC Pride were speaking to Rachel about writing a new story for this very issue, and her enthusiasm for the project was boundless, as she planned to return to her themes of the superhero and the secret identity, of the "kink" of costumes, and of the revelatory freedom that she found in these characters. Unfortunately, just as work was set to begin on the script, completing it became impossible for her. In the absence of that last great work, but with gratitude for the incredible stories she did give us, we've opted to turn the pages we reserved for Rachel's story over to her friends, and to the fans whose lives she changed, to share their memories of her.”

—Unspecified Author or Editor

“I met Rachel Pollack in 1985, at a convention, where I was interviewing her about Salvador Dali’s Tarot, and then I met her again a couple of days later at the Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Conference, and we became friends fast. She was smart and funny, she was a brilliant writer, and she was the first person I’d met who knew more than I did about obscure Jewish mythology.

She told me off for writing a line of dialogue. ‘But that’s the only thing in the whole story that’s actually true,’ I told her, and she explained that art truth and reality truth were two very different things. And I knew she was right.

I don’t know how much I learned about writing, but listening to Rachel and Gwyneth Jones and John Clute and Lisa Tuttle and the rest of them, I learned so much about reading, and what I learned would change me as a writer.

Rachel was my friend. I had never met a person who had transitioned before and I had so many questions and, patiently, she answered all of them. She decided I needed to know Roz Kaveney, and Roz and I have been friends for decades now.

In 1988 I was writing Books of Magic and knew I needed a Tarot reading in the comic. Rachel was in London, and I asked her what the reading should be. She took me out to buy a Tarot deck that spoke to me, and I saw what happened when Rachel Pollack walked into a Tarot shop. It was a little like what happened when The Beatles went on Ed Sullivan. And then she gave me a beautiful reading of four cards, which encapsulated the whole of the story I was trying to tell.

She won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1989 for Unquenchable Fire, and I read it and suspected Rachel was creating her own school of fiction, her own brand of magical realism.

We argued, gently, about Wanda’s fate in A Game of You, and Rachel did what I wish everyone who had an argument about art would do, which is she took what she wanted to say and put it into a comic. Tom Peyer had asked her to write Doom Patrol after Grant Morrison left, and she did a remarkable job. I loved the delirious joy of her comics, the magic and the sense of fun, in Doom Patrol and in the comics that followed Doom Patrol.

I was thrilled to see Rachel when I moved to Upstate New York, and then I didn’t see her for years. I did that thing where you think you’re in touch with your friend, but really you’re just on social media at the same times. I was stuck out of the country during COVID, and Rachel had cancer. I was thrilled when I returned to hear that she had beaten the cancer, and then I was going to see her and she hadn’t beaten the cancer. A whole new cancer had turned up on the day she had beaten the first one.

I got to see Rachel more in the past few months than I had in the previous few years. She was as funny as ever, as sharp and as wise. I got to know her wife, Zoe, and to appreciate their love. I got to tell her bad Jewish jokes that, I suspect, I’d probably first heard from her. ‘Everywhere I went, people said ‘Look at the schmuck on the camel!’’ Some people die well—not necessarily bravely, necessarily, but gently and wisely and kind. Rachel was going to be one of those. She asked me to come to her funeral, and I said that I would.

Her funeral, several months later, was in the sunshine. It was filled with friends of hers from comics, from fiction, from Tarot, from writing, from teaching, from family, from the world, and Rachel lay above the grave on a wooden plank, wrapped in white winding sheet. We said true things about her, and we were funny and honest and there was so much love, and then we shoveled the earth on her, and cried, and said our goodbyes.

I’ve never met anyone like her. I’m glad she was my friend.”

—Neil Gaiman

“Rachel Pollack and I had the same favorite comic book—why, Doom Patrol, of course—and for a while she was its writer and I was its editor. She followed Grant Morrison, whose name was big and growing even then, and for years it seemed like Grant’s era might totally eclipse hers in memory. But DC released her Doom Patrol omnibus in 2022, and in the process unwrapped the radiation-proof bandages from her work, exposing the piercing and radiant appreciation that so many fans felt for it. On top of that, this year Dennis Culver and Chris Burnham, the creators of the excellent Unstoppable Doom Patrol, paid a moving in-story tribute to Rachel’s cast of broken-but-healing heroes.

I’m glad she got to see the omnibus, and I’m grateful for the chance it gave us to relive her perceptive, ironic, unsettling, and revelatory run. It was known for being strange and surreal, but there was so much more going on. Doom Patrol had been weird before, and funny, but never quite as wise or kindly meant.

A story that I always think of when I think of Rachel featured yours truly. At the end of my time as an editor—I had decided I wanted to write full-time—I called the creators I worked with to let them know I was leaving. Most of them, quite understandably, reacted with some implied variation of ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ It made me start to think I was being horrible and selfish. But when I called Rachel and nervously told her what I had decided, there was a silence, and then she said, ‘Quitting is good for the soul.’”

—Tom Peyer

“I met Rachel Pollack in the late ‘90s at WisCon, the feminist science fiction convention where we were both guests. It was the first day of the con, and they were introducing all the guests. I had read Rachel’s Doom Patrol comics and at least one of her books, Unquenchable Fire, and was excited about meeting her. She must have felt the same about me, because when the introductions were over, we headed straight toward each other as though we’d been magnetized, and we became friends immediately.

We lived on opposite sides of the continent, so we didn’t get to see each other that often, but thank the Goddess for email. I visited Rachel’s house once and she visited mine once. Her house was nicer. She took me to visit Hyde Park, Franklin Roosevelt’s old home, now a historic site—we were both FDR fans—and I taught her a Yiddish World War II song. We were both into our Jewishness, but from different angles. Rachel was interested in the mystic side, and I was into Yiddishkeit. Rachel had a bat mitzvah, and I studied Yiddish.

Rachel and I discovered we had the same birthday—August 17, which we shared with Mae West and Davy Crockett. So we sent each other birthday cards that also included happy birthday wishes to Mae and Davy.

I knew Rachel had written many books on the Tarot, so when one day I found a complete set of Tarot cards lying in the street, I decided the Goddess wanted her to have them, and I sent them to her on our birthday. After that, the Goddess would put out Tarot cards for me to find almost every year, often just in time for Rachel’s birthday presents. In return, she sent two Tarot cards that she had drawn for me when I was being treated for cancer. (I’m cancer free now!) I saved them and put them away safely—somewhere.

Last year a neighbor who was a collector of stuff died and left his collections to us, his neighbors, to take for free. Among all the stuff in his stuff-filled rooms was an unopened set of Tarot cards. Shortly after I found the cards, my Romani neighbors who lived around the corner put a book on Tarot out on the street, so I took that for Rachel. I mailed the book and cards to Rachel for our birthday.

For the first time, I got no answering card. I didn’t know that Rachel’s lymphoma had come back.

And somehow, it all got away from me.

Periodically, I would think, ‘Phone her—must phone Rachel,’ but something would come up and I’d forget to phone, or it would be too late to phone because of the time difference between New York and California. Damn it!

I miss you, Rachel. In our next lives, I’ll try to be a better friend.”

—Trina Robbins

“I first met Rachel Pollack when I was the assistant editor on The Sandman and she was the new Doom Patrol monthly writer. I shared an office with Tom Peyer, who was Rachel’s editor, and when Rachel swept in like a redheaded bohemian priestess, I always wound up putting aside my own work so I could chat a bit with Rachel as well. She had the rare gift of wielding her considerable expertise about comics and mythology in a way that made the person talking to her feel smarter.

After I left DC Comics to write full-time, I moved to Rhinebeck and discovered that Rachel lived there, too. We formed a small writing group that met once a week, usually in my kitchen. Always as kind as she was insightful, Rachel spent more time celebrating what worked than critiquing what didn’t. She did a lot of celebrating, of others’ writing and of her own, delighting in the words and worlds that moved through her.

She was, pre-pandemic, a frequent guest at my Passover Seder, the only person besides myself and my mother who knew all the Hebrew and all the traditional melodies. Her vast knowledge of midrash and Kabbalah made her comments more delicious than the charoset she made, and let me tell you, that was pretty damn good. 

In October, when she started to get really sick and I started to visit more frequently, often with Neil Gaiman, Rachel defied any expectation of how a dying person ought to act. She cracked Borscht Belt jokes and talked about writing and writers, and then I went with her wife, Zoe, to pick out a grave. We discussed the Tarot, which I had belatedly begun to study along with her seminal book on the subject, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. I asked, ‘What does it mean when you get an auspicious card in a place that means it’s negative?’ ‘It means that’s what you’re struggling with,’ she replied.

I am struggling with this turn of the cards. I cannot fully fathom that she will not be sitting at our favorite local café, writing, but ready to put down her antique fountain when she sees me. Yet when I turn back to her writing, I feel her still with me: Doom Patrol Rachel, Writing Partner Rachel, Rachel of the Passover Seder, Rachel Poet, Rachel Priestess, Rachel Friend.”

—Alisa Kwitney

“Rachel Pollack loved comics.

When we first talked about comics, it was about her own. Eight years ago I asked Martha Thomases if the Doom Patrol run after Grant’s was worth checking out, as I hadn’t heard much talk of it. She said ‘Yes. Read it.’ I adored the run and reached out to Rachel via email to let her know. To my surprise, I heard back from her within 20 minutes.

Over time we talked about the comics and creators that she loved. Carl Barks and the Duck comics, particularly the characters of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, meant a great deal to her. Little Lulu was high on her list. And The Fox and the Crow inspired a whole arc of her Doom Patrol run. The works of Jack Kirby (particularly on Fantastic Four and the Fourth World saga), Steve Ditko, and Gene Colan were brought up often, as were series including Xambi and Promethea, which she revisited often. She had even reached out to Marvel back in the early ‘70s inquiring about writing opportunities, two decades before writing at DC. 

Rachel saw the inherent queerness in superhero comics back in the Silver Age. One example she would reference was “The Town That Hated Superboy!” from 1967’s Superboy #139. In it, the citizens of Smallville turn against Superboy for nearly two pages. What stood out to Rachel was how Ma and Pa Kent pretended to hate Superboy out of fear that if they didn’t, those around them might suspect that Superboy was really their adoptive son, Clark. Though taking this sequence and relating it to an idea as heavy as the violent consequences of inadvertently outing someone by simply treating them with kindness was unlikely Otto Binder’s intention, the subtext was picked up on by many queer comics readers at the time in addition to Rachel.

Through the years I got to have a greater understanding of Rachel’s unbelievable kindness as well. She saw the world as a positive place and held out hope for just about everyone. Rachel discussed how attitudes with London’s Gay Liberation Front turned against the trans community in the ‘70s, but she would also talk about how some of the same people came back around and were vocal advocates for trans rights by the ‘90s. Whereas most, understandably, would allow themselves to be bitter and resentful, Rachel’s capacity for love and compassion was too strong for that.

I was devastated knowing just how many projects Rachel had in the works and how many stories she still had to tell. But after taking time to think on it, I know that no matter how long she stayed here with us, her work would never be done. Her stories will continue through those who love her and those who haven’t found her yet but will love her just the same. 

I love talking about Rachel’s work and her kindness. I plan on doing so for the rest of my life.”

—Joe Corallo

“‘It’s so cool that you created the first trans superhero,’ a very nice person told me recently. Writing feels like stuffing a message in a bottle and lobbing it out into the open sea, so to meet someone who had caught one of my bottles and read what was inside was extremely exciting. Unfortunately, I am a nerd first and a lover of accolades second, so I had to correct them. 

Galaxy, the character I created, is not the first out trans superhero in the DC Universe. Kate Godwin, created by Rachel Pollack 30 years ago, is. Kate is important, but more than that, she’s important to me. 

I was a teenager 30 years ago. That’s also important.

There’s a lot of talk of firsts in superhero comics, most of it meaningless. Dick Grayson absolutely deserves the ‘Sensational Character Find of 1940’ label trumpeted on the cover of his first appearance, Detective Comics #38, but you don’t need to read it, even as a die-hard Robin fan.

You can’t say that about Doom Patrol #70, the first appearance of Kate Godwin. That issue changes everything. That issue changes lives. Because Kate, a kind and funny woman, with an amusing power set and questionable taste in superhero outfits, who is beautifully, unapologetically trans—Kate is the viewpoint character.

Imagine the power of that. Holding up a trans woman—a lesbian trans woman, at that!—and saying ‘This, this is who you, the reader, should identify with.’ To have a trans woman be smart and pretty and likable, and not an object of scorn or pity, or a side character. She was the hero! I can tell you from experience, that is a tough sell now.

Reading that comic in the 1990s felt like a lightning bolt from heaven.

It was too powerful for my teenage self to handle. It was radioactive, and yet I would read my copy ragged to bask in its glow. I can call up its panels from memory. When I finally began my transition, many years later, I wore a lot of black tank tops and jeans, unconsciously aping Kate’s unofficial uniform. I didn’t put it together until recently, rereading those 30-year-old stories that I had imprinted upon like a baby bird. Early on, I wasn’t sure of the kind of woman I was, but clearly I knew the kind of woman I wanted people to see. Someone like Kate Godwin.

I never got the chance to meet Rachel Pollack and tell her how I had received her message in a bottle. How I had held it close to my heart until I finally found the strength to absorb its message. How she showed me I wasn’t alone, and I could be a hero, even if that just meant saving myself.

But I hear people say those words to me, having read about Galaxy. Which will have to do.

Thank you for being first, Rachel.”

—Jadzia Axelrod

#rachel pollack #i cannot stress enough how much i want people to read this #doom patrol #dc pride

[crawlershq]

CRAWLERS -Back in Action- Studio Day 3

Ey up duck!!! Any of my fellow 00's babies with a love for cartoons remember this cinematic masterpiece?? This sh*t is ingrained into my brain. It's also probably the reason my humour is broken, but I digress...

How are we all?! We're on day 3 of being in the studio!! Song 1 is starting to really pull together and I've got to say, it sounds f**king TASTY!!!!

Yesterday's nap score was a grand total of..........0!!!! Yep, you read that right, CRAWLERS made it through a whole day without a nap. It's unheard of, but we did it. Can we get a little round of applause for us anemics please?

That means your favourite bat-enthusiast is still in the lead with a total of 2 naps. I've got my money on Harry being the overall winner, but we'll all just have to wait and see.

Now for all of you who caught yesterday's studio day update, you'll remember I mentioned that we have some exciting news. If you follow us on our other social media platforms, you'll more than likely already be clued in, but for those of you who aren't, allow me to relieve you of the suspense- for my DC fans, this is going to be a big one for you. It certainly was for us!!

As some of you may know, HBO has been airing a show called Doom Patrol since 2019 (which also has Brendan Fraser casted -- did you like my little foreshadowing at the start there?? A cheeky little hint at what the surprise is?? She's not just a pretty face) and our very first single, So Tired, was chosen as a feature on the episode!!!! CRAWLERS are DC canon baybeeeeee!!!!!! Does that mean I have a chance with R Patts' Batman???? I'd buy your hats for the wedding now peeps, you're all invited.

Cute couple, right??? Anyway...

I do have a clip of the scene in question, however it's not exactly PG-13, so I can't post it without getting banned from Tumblr, but what I *can* post is a dramatisation of our reactions to viewing the clip for the first time. I would like to give you all a bit of context though-- nobody had told us the full scene. We were only told that Jane (character) would smoke some w**d and listen to some CRAWLERS records. Jeremy Carver (writer) has explained why Jane practicing some self love is so important to the character's development and personally, I'm all for female sexuality being shown in a light that isn't p*rnographic, but it was certainly unexpected at 10am on a Tuesday.

Jokes aside, this is a big deal for us and we cannot thank the team at Doom Patrol enough for choosing our silly little eyeliner band to be a part of their creation and the DC Universe. You made some little nerds very happy ^-^

#crawlers #crawlers band #dcu comics #dc universe #doom patrol #crazy jane #self love #sexuality #batman #cartoons #looney tunes #so tired

[frosty-the-killer-doll]

20 questions for fic writers - tagged by the lovely @supergirlboy !!!!!

How many works do you have on ao3?

98

What's your total ao3 word count?

274,783

What fandoms do you write for?

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

how do i look? (mm, frightful) - Heroes of Olympus

two rights can feel so, so wrong - Stranger Things

when the sun loves the moon - Wednesday

if flynn rider was out there, i'd probably reject him - Brooklyn 99

snow laughing matter - The Flash

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Of course! I want to let my readers know how much I appreciate their feedback 💕

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I couldn't decide between these three:

There’s a beautiful warmth in Felicity’s watery gaze when she talks about how straight-laced and good, how wonderful, Laurel had been as a teenager. Student body president, y’know! Always the smart kid you knew was going somewhere. Felicity hadn’t even known her back then, but that never really mattered. Laurel was sharp, kind, friendly— but she could hold her own. And she had, all her life, no matter what. Until… “Until... Damien Darhk.” Barry knows, at the vile hatred burning in Felicity’s tone at that name, he isn’t going to like this part of Laurel’s life story. And he’s right.

- finding out

Somewhere in the darkness of night, she makes the choice to leave. To run away from the monster, push past the angel, barely give any thought to the hunter. Tomorrow, when the sun comes up and her body works again… For now, she stirs in the memories of Randy’s blood and Salinger’s touch. She’s going to get out of here if it kills her.

- wounded

Khione will never know them. She wishes she got to know them. She wishes she could have been made for a different purpose. She wants to be the one that hears Frost inside her head and listens to Caitlin’s bad singing. Khione is grieving the lives she never led, but the lives that her body remembers so loyally. She doesn’t remember them. But that means she’ll never forget them.

-- and if it had to perish twice

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

maybe this oldie from smoak signals?

Laurel looked around at all these people. She’d known so many of them for years. Some were still strangers to her. She wouldn’t pass up this night for the universe. Even if she could go back to Earth-Two, she loved that so many of the people around her were alive and happy because of Prime. Eddie Thawne didn’t have to die to ensure Eobard’s defeat. Here, Barry didn’t have to break Patty’s heart. Livewire wasn’t just undead, but she was genuinely a force of good. Here, William had siblings—not blood ones, but blood didn’t matter much to them. He chose to be the brother of Zoe Ramirez and Ruby Arias, the polywogs. Maybe things weren’t always perfect. But as far as Laurel was concerned, this overwhelming linked group of outcasts was her perfect family. She loved them all, so, so, so fucking much, she didn’t know how to put it into a sentence. And she didn’t even know some of their names. That was amazing.

Do you get hate on fics?

bitch, every time I post about Max Mayfield. Her haters are alive and well in the comments of any ao3 fics that portray her in even a somewhat positive light

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've written smut literally once and it's kinky Smoaking Canarrow threesome. I would love to write more smutty works...

Do you write crossovers?

Assuming we're not counting crossovers between media that exists in the same universe, not generally, but I did manage to sneak Crazy Jane of the Doom Patrol into an Arrowverse fic!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

shit not that I know of

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don't think so?

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

RAO no

What’s your all-time favorite ship to write for?

:3 teehee

What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

probably bare my old, diseased soul. I haven't touched it in years; I've lost interest in soulmate AUs, even polyamorous ones that star my darling Caity.

What are your writing strengths?

shrug emoji

What are your writing weaknesses?

it's hard to spell things right when you're dyslexic so I fear there are spelling and grammar errors in some places, tho I try to reread my works a shitton to fix any I may find before posting

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

make sure to always research the shit outta whatever you're trying to say!

First fandom you wrote for?

if writing multiple novel-length fics based on the adventures of my Warrior Cats OCs counts, then Warriors. Considering those works featured literally no actual Warrior characters, I like to say The Flash.

Favorite fic you’ve written?

true to form, a fluffy pre-relationship Killersnow~

UM UM UM let's tag @the-feral-gremlin and @icedteaandoldlace and @laurensxdeath

#tag games #fic writers

[just-an-enby-lemon]

speaking of multiverse crossovers: what characters and which versions of them would you like to put into a crossover like that?

Okay. I'm fighting really hard to give an interest answer instead of going Riddler because is fun and I have an hyperfixation.

I would love the X-Men but there would be too many characthers and it would have to be a very ambitious and long project for it to work. But they do have very distict and interesting versions. Specially Wolverine. Something about the different cartoon Wolverines meeting is already deeply satisfying for me but also Scott as a characther reading or the different ways Rogue and Jean deal with their power struggle (killing everything she touches and the phoenix). Besides Logan and the first two X-Man I would not consider the movies tbh. Also Logan has a podcast and I didn't listened to it yet but I'm very curious. Storm, Magneto, Kitty, Mistique. All the other X-Man also deserve it because in the end it would be not only a narrative but a deep characther analisys.

I think Bruce as well. Something about the different ways he dealt with his trauma, the different relations he had with his code and with his rogues and specially with his support system. Batman is a deeply popular and therefore has a lot of very different adaptations and it would be interesting to see what they all have in common what they can teach each other and what the writers considered central traits. Maybe categorize them. It's interesting.

The Doom Patrol FOR SURE. They have a lot of runs (and same goes for the TV show) exploring meta concepts in interesting ways and also to do amazing characther work. And therefore this plot would fit their style pretty well. And bring interesting new takes for a story that is already very characther based.

The Titans. I think they have enought versions and in a lot they can at the same time also reflect the changes the Justice League had in different words as the impact they made on this kids change constantly.

If they had more interresting adaptations the Fantastic Four. But since they don't an analitical huge anthology with notes would be AMAZING. Would I ever be abble to buy it? Not really. But still.

Luke Cage. Most characthers that are members of minorities would fit this type of project like a glove because it brings interesting thematics that can go to both the main story and the characther analisys. But Luke is the one with a lot of cross media variety and that's very important.

Lex Luthor. Superman changes more between ages than versions but Luthor? It wohld be fascinating and also seeing Luthor fighting eich himself would be fun.

Constantine, Zatanna and any magic user really but specially ones with a lot of crossmedia adaptations. I hate to saw it but it could be an MCU project with Strange.

Wanda and Tony but the only way for it to happen would be via MARVEL and the whole point of the comparisson would be about how big companies corrupt you, societies and art (a very clear subtext) and I doubt the MCU would let me criticize Disney and point out the problem of two of their most beloved characthers.

There is others. But I think this are the major ones. Again a lot of Batman Rogues and Batfam members specialy Riddler also fit but I'm too biased to really express it well.

What about you? Wich characthers would you use to this type of narrative?

#multiverse #marvel #dc #ask

[hintsofhoney]

alright, *cracks fingers*. so. I’ve written up a transcript just to lay it all out for myself and get the most important parts. listen, everyone. for all intents and purposes and legal reasons, THIS WAS A DREAM. alright? I dreamt this. and he is literally the nicest human being ever so I don’t want to just like... put our whole convo out there like that, but I think he said some stuff that was important for people to hear so... here we go

my *dreamt* zoom call with thee crowley below the cut

The first five minutes (of my dream) was just a bunch of introduction stuff and talking about my favorite Supernatural seasons which eventually led to him telling me how they filmed the Season 8 finale (which they did over the span of three days, and in between takes the crew members were like dead silent, as to keep the moment going, which Mark thought was really cool. Said it was one of his favorite things they did on Supernatural.) Anyways, he eventually asked me if I had any questions, so, I’ll start there.

MARK: So, do you have any questions you want to ask me about aaaaaannyyyythingggg? 

ME: Um, I guess the number one thing I wanna know… um, so, I know you can’t speak for Dean and I don’t want to talk about Dean because you’re not Jensen, but, there’s like a lot of questions I guess or subtext or whatever concerning Dean’s sexuality and what not, but I want to know about demon Dean and Crowley’s relationship and if there was, I don’t know, anything like, any implied –

MARK: Well I think – I think you’re talking about… there’s a massive difference between sex and love. There’s a massive difference between, um, well, they can intertwine perfectly, that’s not the issue, but I mean you would believe with all the things that Crowley did for the Winchesters, that he was – that he very much loved Sam and Dean or loved who they are or what they are. To reduce it to, you know, a crush, or to something that – I mean, I don’t know, I think Crowley is very probably pansexual more than anything else; I don’t think anything phased him. I think, that’s why the whole stuff with Lucifer and licking the floor was kind of really stupidly boring for me because Crowley did weirder and crazier things on his own. I mean, it became this joke of trying to humiliate somebody who can’t be humiliated. There’s nothing you can humiliate Crowley with. So, that never sort of made sense, that was just a sort of writer’s glitch of thinking, “oooh, this would be funny to knock him down into subservience” and that’s what he does on a Wednesday, I mean it’s like the most un-inspiring thing. I think so much is projected onto the relationship between, certainly the four main characters, um, and, you know, look, getting comfortable with one’s sexuality and one’s identity is a massively complicated things, and if you want to live vicariously through what you believe people’s identity is and you can relate to that, great!  Who cares? I mean, can I be absolutely honest? Apart from – what I do care about, you know, don’t ever take this and piece me or misquote it, because it’s very, very specific – um, somebody stopping somebody being able to express their own identity or whatever is an issue for me. That will always be an issue for me. Um, we should all be treated equally, and we all have the rights to believe and follow those things that we wish to follow, but to project relationships onto characters is an odd thing to do. I mean, it’s wishful thinking in a lot of ways, I mean, actually it’s quite… it’s quite reasonable because in the past if you think about it, if you ask your parents or anyone else, the only way sexuality was used was to, uh, literally demonize somebody. It was only ever used to say somebody was bad because this who they’re in love with. You know, that’s, that’s the thing. And it’s a massive change in the world that we’re moving towards, I should say, uh – a lack of consequence for who one loves, apart from the obvious consequences of human nature. You know, political consequences for who one loves – I’ve just watched Pete Butteigieg being, you know, sitting in congress with his husband there with him; that’s the first time that’s ever happened in United States congress and I’m so proud of that. Not just because the man is gay and happily married – that’s not even the issue for me, it’s because he’s the best man for the job and one of the smartest people on the planet. You know, it’s like using sexual templates, as they were, or gender templates as they are, or orientation templates as they are, we always use to disclude people from things. They were always used to discriminate. You know, labeling somebody was a way of discrimination. And where as labels are very important, to ones self, and they’re very important politically and they’re very important socio-economically and they’re very important in all those aspects, I yearn for a time when nobody gives a damn. I really do. But I mean, we have to go through so much to get there. I mean, let’s be honest, you can’t, you know, right the wrongs of hundreds of years of oppression in 20 minutes by saying, “let’s all move forward”. It just doesn’t work that way, it never has. But there’s a responsibility there, that if you’re going to represent, that you represent all. That you don’t just represent you. So, one has to be careful with a television program or, or, you know, Misha or myself, or, not speaking for the boys, but just generally, um, you have to be careful that what you advocate is inclusive, not disinclusive. Not excluding people... and it’s so hard to frame these conversations, that they’re equitable, it’s so hard to do that. And so, you know, we spend years pointing out the inequity and the injustice and the unfairness of the whole situation, and… I don’t know if the trick is to rise above, or, uh, maybe it’s as simple as love and coming together as a human race and make it very difficult for people to discriminate and exclude based on gender, race, color, religion, any of the subsets of humanity that we’ve decided we have. So, I think personal responsibility is the most important thing, but if one is in a position of power on a TV show, you got to remember what you’re representing, that you have a, you know, you have to cover all or cover none. So, you know, but if you stick to a story and you have a story about a person or two people and their journey, that’s shining light on things. If you try to advocate for all, I think it becomes a little more complicated. Does that make sense?

so, i just feel like he said some important things there, but like I also don’t really understand what he’s getting at really, y’know? oh! also, he didn’t watch the finale lmao 

also! there’s this:

MARK: Because if you come down on one side or another, you’re admitting the sides, and that has its own political ramifications. If you push the ball up in the air and say, “you decide”, I don’t think that’s copping out. I think that’s, maybe not fulfilling everybody’s expectations, or not fulfilling everybody’s hopes, but at least you’re getting the question asked. You know, at least you’re getting the question asked. At least people are relating to it and going, “well, what if?”. Because it’s all “what if”, I mean, it’s a TV show, so it’s “what if”, you know? It’s not Misha being in love with Jensen, I mean as much as he loves Jensen, I don’t think that’s his thing – I mean you never know – but I’m saying yet again, I don’t exclude anything from anybody (I LITERALLY CAN’T BELIEVE HE SAID THIS LMAO). But to force my opinion or my identity belief upon a situation has a cost. It may be right, it may be absolutely right, and it may be necessary in many, many cases. But, in that circumstance, I think… there are a lot of people in the world that say that Jesus, for example, was anti-homosexual and that he was – and none of that is true, and none of that is provable in the New Testament, and I’m not talking about Leviticus and I’m not talking about early Bible and I’m not talking about the fact that more than 25,000 words have been changed in the King James edition and all of this stuff, but these things that people hold so sacred, the confusion that arises from that is being told that a man loving a man or a woman loving a woman or a man loving a man and a woman or whatever combination being there is either right or wrong because you’re being told by a pastor or the leaders of your church, is a very difficult thing to break down. I think what you have to do is at least put it out there so it’s visible, and so it becomes less and less deniable. And you know, people change over years, that’s the trouble with youth, is shit doesn’t move fast enough. “I need a decision now!”, and unfortunately, when you’re dealing with centuries of prejudice and centuries of un-enlightenment, I think that sometimes the best thing to do is reach as many people as possible and pose the question. And sometimes it’s essential to make a statement, absolutely, no question. It is essential to make a stand, in some circumstances. But to polarize a TV show, can be very disingenuous to those who need to go ask their own questions, who need to go say, “well, where does Jesus say this is wrong?” you know, if that’s your beliefs.

he also said, when we went off on a tangent about doom patrol:

MARK: There are issues that are being addressed here [on Doom Patrol] that are not being addressed on other shows, and yet again, we have the format, and I don’t know that Supernatural ever had the format because it was on the CW.

anywho, in conclusion, fuck the cw.

also, again, for all intents and purposes this was a dream I had :)))))))

[ghostflowerdreams]

Audio Drama Recommendations

Recently, I’ve been on a audio drama binge and there’s a couple that I found that were really good, interesting or just fun and enjoyable to listen to. They’re not in any particular order.

DUST -- each season contains an interesting and immersive sci-fi audio story. I first started with Season Three: CHRYSALIS, which is a 14-part drama that begins with an AI that awakens after the genocide of the human race by an unknown alien species. [COMPLETED]

It’s very well produced and it’s got an impressive voice cast of Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton, 24: Legacy), Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Knives Out), Lance Reddick (John Wick Series, Fringe), Haley Joel Osment (What We Do In The Shadows, The Boys) and Matthew Wolf (The Royals, Missing Link), Shea Whigham (Boardwalk Empire, Perry Mason), Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley), Dominic Rains (Chicago Med, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and Jaboukie Young-White (The Daily Show, Someone Great).

Note: Chrysalis is a Science Fiction Web Serial Novel posted to the subreddit /r/HFY (short for "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!") by the Redditor BeaverFur. Everyone enjoyed it so much that it was then turned into a audio drama.

Season Two: FLIGHT 008 (of DUST), is a 11-part drama created by 11 of the biggest writers in science fiction. Each episode contains unique stories that all follow a single thread: a non-stop flight from Tokyo to San Francisco that passes through a wrinkle in space-time and lands in the year 2040. So you don’t need to follow the order of when the episodes were aired. [COMPLETED]

It has performances by an all-star cast too: Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey, Beauty and the Beast), Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal, Supergirl), Reid Scott (Veep, Venom 2), Keith David (Barbershop, The Princess and the Frog), Alfred Molina (Frozen 2, Frida), and Danny Trejo (Con Air, Heat).

Old Gods of Appalachia -- is a horror-anthology set in the shadows of an Alternate Appalachia, a place where digging too deep into the mines was just the first mistake. [ONGOING]

In the mountains of central Appalachia, blood runs as deep as these hollers and just as dark. Since before our kind knew these hills, hearts of unknowable hunger and madness have slumbered beneath them. These are the oldest mountains in the world. How dare we think we can break the skin of a god and dig out its heart without bringing forth blood and darkness?

It’s got a fantastic and immersive atmosphere that I could almost feel like was sitting at a campfire in the middle the woods as the narrator does an excellent job at delivering a well written spooky story.

The Phenomenon -- is a serialized sci-fic horror audio drama based on the book by R.K. Katic. It follows people from around the world during a major cataclysmic event which drives mankind to the point of extinction. It starts off with an ominous warning, “Do not go outside. Do not look at the sky. Do not make noise.” [COMPLETED]

It’s got a huge cast, full sound design and the episodes are about 20 minutes in length.

We’re Alive -- it follows a large group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse in downtown Los Angeles, California. Twelve chapters make up one season, and there are four seasons with a total of forty eight chapters. Each episode is approximately twenty minutes (sometimes even 30 minutes), making each chapter about an hour long. [COMPLETED]

It’s definitely a movie for your ears with it’s excellent audio production and great voice actors. There’s also two spin-offs, titled “We’re Alive: Lockdown” and “We’re Alive: Goldrush.”

The Angel of Vine -- is a 10-part fictional true crime audio story about a present day journalist that uncovers the audio tapes of a 1950s private eye who cracked the greatest unsolved murder mystery Hollywood has ever known... and didn’t tell a soul. [COMPLETED]

It stars Joe Manganiello (True Blood, Magic Mike), Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, Frida), Constance Zimmer (Entourage, UnREAL), Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Doom Patrol), Camilla Luddington (Grey's Anatomy, Tomb Raider), Mike Colter (Luke Cage, Evil), Misha Collins (Girl, Interrupted, Supernatural), Khary Payton (The Walking Dead, Teen Titans Go!), Nolan North (Uncharted, Pretty Little Liars), and Oliver Vaquer (Andi Mack, Jane the Virgin).

Malevolent -- is a eldritch horror, mystery in the 1920s and the story follows Private Investigator Arthur Lester in Arkham, Massachusetts as he unravels the mysterious circumstances that have befallen him. It heavily features the horrors of Lovecraft as well as the mechanics of Chaosium’s famous system without the inclusion of rolls. [ONGOING]

How it works is that patrons of the audio drama decide on what happens next or what Arthur does. So something as simple as choosing which lead to follow first could have deadly results. Additionally, making a choice may not only lose time but valuable resources such as money and objects. Every choice has a consequence. Listeners know when a choice was decided on when you hear the cue of dice dropping onto a table.

Darkest Night -- is a binaural audio drama that places you, the listener, at the center of a recovered memory that sounds as though it’s happening around you in real time. Each chapter delves into the last memories of the recently deceased, slowly revealing a horrifying master plan. Who is weaving this master conspiracy, and what is their ultimate goal? [ONGOING]

Darkest Night is narrated by Lee Pace (The Hobbit, Guardians of the Galaxy, Pushing Daisies) and features acting performances from Denis O'Hare (American Horror Story, The Nevers), Maynard James Keenan, Missi Pyle (The Artist. Dodgeball), RuPaul, Michelle Visage, and Jeffery Bowyer-Chapman.

I’ve only listen to season one and it was great. It’s got great sounds effects, acting and they don't hold back on the grimness or gore. I’ve also heard from others that seasons two, especially season three are lackluster, but make of it what you will.

The Phone Booth -- is a superhero drama that takes place in a world where 15 years ago, a girl named Beca Orlofsky stepped into the sky and exploded. Over the course of the following week, 99% of every living human on the planet gained a super-power. Now, podcaster Joe Pollard gives us interviews with people who went to sleep ordinary and woke up as something else. [ONGOING]

We Fix Space Junk -- is a dark sci-fi comedy that follows seasoned smuggler Kilner and reluctant fugitive Samantha as they travel the galaxy, dodging bullets and meeting strange and wonderful beings as they carry out odd jobs on the fringes of the law. [ONGOING]

#podcast #audio drama #listen to #Old Gods of Appalachia #The Phenomenon #The Angel of Vine #DUST Chrysalis #DUST Flight 008 #Darkest Night #The Phone Booth #We Fix Space Junk #podcasts #audio dramas #We're Alive

[transguygardner]

free idea for ttg writers lmao

the ttg series finale should be the teen titans being told to grow up already so robin decides they need to shadow the team at the new west coast justice league embassy (joke about west coast avengers) and its the jli and they spend the episode paired up with a jli member and the titans see the jli about to do something and suggest the more mature option which the jli rejects. the titans reconvene and are like “we’ve been trying to learn how to be more mature but it feels like these adults are less mature than we are. its almost like getting older doesn’t mean that you automatically get wiser and more responsible. that these are things that you each have to work on individually in order to become a productive member of your community.” and then theres a beat and robin goes “which means... WE DONT HAVE TO CHANGE AT ALL!” and then both teams go destroy something. the end

also here are the character shadowing pair ups

starfire and tora cause theyre both the naive princess character from another world that have an overbearing obnoxious character who likes them and a close female friendship

beast boy and cyborg with booster and ted cause theyre both the boy best friends jokester characters with connections to technology and ted has animal theming too. also ted and booster were at the clam bake beast boy and the doom patrol threw so there could be a moment that mentions that

raven and beatriz cause theyre both the cool girl with a hot streak. their similarities arent as strong as the other match ups but it could work

and then finally robin and guy. they both have the loud obnoxious personality thing going on and they can do a thing where robins like really. youre my mentor. the worst green lantern. but then robin notices that guy has more success with tora than he’s had with starfire so that build the common ground. and theres also the trying to lead the team and nobody’s listening thing. which like guy isnt the leader but he wants to be lol

[ashintheairlikesnow]

hello!!! i am a big fan of your writing & how you depict very raw emotions, i always feel like i'm right there in the moment :}}} i'm writing a whump series & i wanna glean as much advice from as many good writers as possible!! advice as to how to write better (effective) panic attacks, especially if its from a stoic used-to-punishment whumpee who doesn't express a lot Emotion?? i appreciate it!! (p.s. are you open to getting asked writing advice in general?) thx!! - newbornwhumperfly

CW: Frank discussion of panic attacks/anxiety/PTSD

I actually get a lot of writing advice asks! You can see my answers to other questions here on my #writing advice tag!

I think people tend to rely heavily on a certain kind of panic attack, including me - obvious panting or breathing hard, curling up into a ball, covering vulnerable areas. Racing heart, shaking/trembling, racing thoughts, disjointed or disconnected thought processes that jump quickly

That may not be the kind of panic attack that suits your whumpee, though! Consider writing them growing outwardly calmer and more capable, even as a sense of pure impending doom settles within their chest. Especially with a stoic whumpee who is used to suppressing any outward emotions, it may not come naturally to them to show panic, and what may happen instead of an internal monologue that is just [WORDLESS SCREAMING] while outwardly they continue to function at close to normal or even become hyper-effective and efficient to cover up their mindset.

Symptoms of panic attacks include but are not limited to:

A sense of impending doom (this is such a specific emotion/physical sensation and it is such a huge anxiety thing. You literally physically feel as though everything is about to fall in on your head RIGHT THIS SECOND YOU ARE GOING TO DIE GO GO GO only nothing is actually wrong and there’s nowhere TO go)

Fearing that you’ve lost control of your own body or you are going to die right now now now now

Rapid heartrate, pounding heart

Cold or hot sweats, feeling sweat break out even in a chilly place or cold room

Trembling, shaking throughout the extremities or body

Chills and/or hot flashes, a sense of sudden temperature change regardless of the actual temperature of your location

Nausea/vomiting

Abdominal cramping or chest pains, often sharp (many people believe they are having a coronary event/heart attack when they have panic-attack chest pains)

Headache, either dull and throbbing or sharp or stabbing both can happen

Dizziness, lightheadedness (NOT the same as dizziness!), or feeling faint

Feeling numb, or like your limbs are tingling/fingers or toes feel tingly

Dissociation - a feeling of unreality, detachment from the world or environment around you

Intrusive thoughts - these don’t show up often in lists of panic attack symptoms but I know that during my worst panic attacks, I start to get really bad intrusive thoughts that cycle over and over again until I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind. While they don’t go away entirely during my daily life (I still struggle with intrusive thoughts as part of my anxiety disorder), I am more able to deal with them when I’m not actively in a panic attack. During a panic attack, though, I am totally at the mercy of whatever doomsday scenario my brain has started to feed me.

Repetitive behaviors - this is another that doesn’t show up on a lot of panic attack lists, but it’s something I have seen in myself and others. Especially with PTSD-related panic attacks, you may see someone falling into behaviors they learned in, say, the military or another situation in which a coping mechanism becomes muscle memory. An army vet I know, for instance, would often find himself essentially patrolling his yard during panic attack because he couldn’t calm himself down unless he did. 

Panic-stims - listen, stimming to soothe during a panic attack is honestly a fairly widespread thing that we often call a “nervous habit” or something like that when explaining it to ourselves or others later. But consider - rocking back and forth, chewing on their fingernails, insistently pulling on hair or twisting a button back and forth or rubbing fingers over its surface. Self-soothing behavior during a panic attack is incredibly common. Danny, for example, rubs insistently at his scars when he is panicking to soothe himself. Chris (who is autistic) falls into self-harming negative stims if his panic is pushed too far, like scratching at himself or hitting his head repetitively into a wall. 

On the other hand, going very very still! Often, people who are panicking aren’t immediately recognized as doing so because they DON’T have an obvious response. Nate’s panic attacks sometimes simply equal him going very very silent and still, which is easy to miss. 

One thing I do, since I tend to write in third-person character POV (I write, for example, “Chris thought” or “Danny thought” but only write one person’s perspective per drabble most often, so it’s not omniscient or all-knowing) is start having my POV character’s thought fragment, become broken or run on endlessly, cycling past the same thoughts (intrusive, usually) over and over again as they begin to break down. 

Speed up their thoughts, scatter sentence fragments. Write with the same urgency and speed as the individual who is panicking. If you write someone panicking in a stately, slow pace, it won’t read as panic. It won’t read as something genuinely happening to your character. Pace is everything when it comes to writing a breakdown. People fall apart, as they say, slowly and then all at once. But in our own minds, it can feel like an avalanche, and it works best I think, personally, when written as an avalanche and not a slowly running river. 

Hope this helps!

#panic attacks tw #panic attack tw #panic attack #writing advice #writing

[markcampbells]

Hey, I've just seen your reblog of Lady Danbury, I'm guessing you've watched Bridgerton? Thoughts?

Hello, anon! (It’s been like a year since I got a genuine anon so this is an exciting occasion...)

I have seen half of Bridgerton! (I am what we call a slow binger who watches like half or most of a series and then gets to the rest when she gets to it, which can be a while. :p) I do know spoilers from friends/discussion groups and from general discussion about the books, so generally what I haven’t seen I do know about.

So, the good: I think the cast is great and as an Austen fan, it’s doing wonders for getting people into the era and excited about period stories, which is great! Mindy Kaling recently tweeted thanking Bridgerton for “normalizing her softcore Austen predilection,” and I relate to that strongly. :p I ended up starting it with my parents over the Christmas holidays and my stepdad got sucked right in, so it has that power to captivate people and I love that it’s breaking records. The colorblind casting is a great thing that more productions should model, though it does have its limitations (like that there are a lot of races that haven’t been represented just yet, and that it was written to be colorblind but not necessarily color conscious, since some subplots read a little weird when you factor in the races of the characters involved). I agree with a bunch of fans who are hoping that more significant characters (especially the female love interests for some of the brothers) will be cast as women of color in the future. (This is of course provided that the show gets a Season 2, which right now looks inevitable but, you know, pandemic fucking up all kinds of shit so who knows.) It’s also great that it’s on Netflix, which makes it super accessible, as opposed to shows that end up on more niche services and so don’t see that kind of love. (Me? Speaking as a fan of things like The Last Tycoon and Doom Patrol that got overshadowed by being on more niche services and/or canceled? ... what! no!)

The bad... uh. Well. So I read the book in summer 2019, and due to the, um, bad consent dynamics? between Simon and Daphne, I sort of hated it. And I don’t love that the show decided to keep that instance of dubious consent, even if they toned it down somewhat. I also don’t love the way that portions of the fandom are responding to that moment, by saying things like “well Simon took advantage of Daphne’s ignorance about sex, so he deserved her doing that to him!” (Newsflash, uh, both sides being toxic doesn’t mean they cancel each other out? Or something?) Fortunately many people are calling out that scene via tweets and thinkpieces, and I got a laugh out of a tweet my friend shared of someone saying “Simon and Daphne need THERAPY.” That’s the thing that stops me from loving the show as much as most people--Simon and Daphne have that core of dysfunction that can’t really be resolved in a way that involves them talking and getting past it because, well, conversations about assault and consent dynamics are too modern for a period show. Simon and Daphne are also the first endgame in a romance-based series, so it’s not like the show is going to have them split up for good or have real conflict arise out of that scenario. I feel that the problem is that the writers chose to (a) keep this scenario instead of leaving it out entirely and (b) that because they can’t deal with the scenario in a modern way, their only choice is to basically avoid portraying what Daphne does as assault, so it kind of gets glossed over. My only hope is that the writers are listening to the fan concerns about these issues and take those into account for future seasons, because I’ve been told (and have read in reviews) that other books of Quinn’s also have moments of questionable consent, and I really don’t want this to become a recurring theme in the show.

To sum up: there are great things about this show! The diversity of the casting is great and a positive thing for the genre overall even though it still has room to approve, and that the show is super accessible to people who don’t normally watch the genre is awesome. The performers themselves are splendid in their roles and it’s definitely made me a fan of a few people I might not have known otherwise. But the reason I’m personally not totally sold on the show as much as others is that the questionable consent dynamics and the way Simon and Daphne can’t really resolve their very real issues due to the period setting make it harder for me to wholeheartedly love the show. That being said, I appreciate how enthusiastic my friends (particularly my friends of color) are for a show that really represents them, and it is great to see a genre show getting mainstream love. I’m willing to hold out for improvement on the things I think could use fixing! So Bridgerton isn’t necessarily my favorite show, but I do enjoy it and I’m glad it exists!

(Seriously, thank you, anon! Other than the one anon ask I got last year the last genuine anon ask I got was, like, 2017, so that there’s still someone out there willing to pop in and ask me for my thoughts on something like this means a lot and gave me something fun to talk about!)

#ask box #anonymous

[cryptocism]

A while ago you have some comic rec... Which where amazing I read the weed storyline high and it was a unique experience do you have any adaptions you like...Be they live action or animated... Currently airing or from the 60's I need to know!

Sounds wild omg. And yeah sure! 

Aight so the Teen Titans show from 2003 was basically my introduction to anything DC related. Like I knew about Batman and the Justice League and all that but I’d never read a comic or watched any of the shows or anything, until of course cartoon network blew my tiny mind with this one. Like I still have this memory of watching the episode The End in my friend’s basement, and we were in the first grade and just enthralled by that shit. I’d never seen a cartoon be so intense and cool. But also it’s wonderful and lighthearted and weird and I love it a lot. Did any of yall use the website Toonsurfer back in the day? Because I watched all of Teen Titans on that thing, front to back. And it took me like three months because after 72 minutes of watching the browser would just stop loading videos and tell you to go outside. I still remember the rainbow toonsurfer logo gaah that was over a decade ago time is weird.

Batman Beyond and Batman the Animated Series and tbh basically any of the Bruce Timm animated shows are very very good. I only ever saw the odd episode as a kid but I remembered liking them and then started watching online a few years ago as something to listen to while I draw.

Speaking of listening music, Holy Musical B@man is a masterpiece and that’s all there really is to say on the matter.

Much more recently - that new Pennyworth show? Good. I’ve only seen the pilot so far, and I’m still probably gonna watch the whole thing even if it ends up bad because Alfred is my favourite, but yeah I like the look of it. I like how they’ve “gothamized” London with the zeppelins and smokestacks and criminals in like, hanging cages and pillory stocks. I love how Alfred is portrayed, I’m interested in whatever the fuck Thomas Wayne’s deal is, I’m hoping Martha shows up at some point, I like that Ezme didn’t get fridged in the first episode like I worried she might, and I love that one bitter evil woman and how bitter and evil she is.

Oh shit, on the topic of newer tv shows: Doom Patrol. Never before have I witnessed a show that perfectly encapsulates the absolute shitbrained insanity of comic books. I like to describe the joy of reading comics as this wonderful melting pot of creativity - not all of them are good, in fact most of them are quite bad, but the medium is perfectly suited to a universe of wild ideas. Every episode feels like the writers are just throwing creativity-spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. It’s phenomenal.

Also I still maintain that the Lego Batman movie is the most faithful and best Batman adaptation ever made.

#anonymous #asks

[marksarmel]

Another edition of What I’m Consuming for you to consume.

What I’ve Been Consuming 05/13/20

Look, we are not heroes for staying home and watching ungodly amounts of tv, but it’s the smart thing to do. So let’s all be smart while calcifying our brains with movies, tv, video games, comic books, Zoom meet ups, the FUCKING INTERNET that contains the entire collection of human creation and knowledge and our favorite snacks. I’m settling in with Flaming Hot Cheeto’s popcorn, Pork Rinds and the occasional edible with my favorite cocktail. I wash all this down with my nightly dose of Simvastatin, my cholesterol medication. 

Also, let’s get out and walk around since it’s beautiful weather right now. This is especially important for those of us in the Midwest who were blessed with snow just last week!

TV

Recently finished the Amazon series Hunters. It was good, but looking at it as a whole it seemed  to be holding something back. The characters felt like they were supposed to be larger than life and more bombastic, but they were instead subdued. Even Al Pacino is reserved. Was it a comic book adaptation or an inspired-by-actual-events type show? it was a compelling story somewhat overshadowed by not being sure what kind of show it wanted to be.

Midnight Gospel! Oh my god where to begin? This is simply great tv. The rhythm of the show sets in super fast and all you can do is hold on for the duration. I’m nearly done with the season and it’s deconstruction of philosophy and life and death are pretty timely, but never preachy. Just sit down and enjoy. Best served with a side of your favorite marijuana infused edible.

The new limited series RUN from HBO quickly got me hooked. It’s premised on two old lovers who have a pact to meet again if one texts “RUN” to the other. After 15 years one texts the other and our story begins! It was no struggle for me to dive into this show since I’m already well along in my Merrit Weaver addiction. She has been a spoonful of sugar with a side of cake in shows such as Godless and Unbelievable. I’m making room on my calendar now to watch her in Nurse Jackie and I’m super embarrassed to admit that I had no idea she was Denise in the Walking Dead. Ok, enough about Ms. Weaver, Domnhall Gleason is in this show too. 

I’m rewatching Watchmen because it was one of the best shows of 2019. It is great to see Damon Lindelof stick the landing like Simone Biles on this one. It was completely engrossing in every way.

For a much needed salve of humor in these times Middleditch and Schwartz is absolutely sting free healing. It’s a short three episodes and all three episodes are solid, but one and two are the best.

Killing Eve is back and I couldn’t be happier! So so happy to have all of these characters in my life. So so sad at what happens to them.

Quick Bites - Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is still living its best life. Real Time with Bill Maher not so much. Still keeping up with Homeland, but season 5 is not the best. The Westworld  season finale wrapped up a wobbly season with a solid if forgettable final episode. I miss the heady hard to understand first two seasons. Props for some good action sequences this season though.

I need to get back too… I started Lock and Key a while back and lost it somewhere in the ether. Also, an FB convo reminded me to get back to Doom Patrol. I never finished Counterpart either. (Looking back at my post from last moth I see that I also mentioned getting back to Counterpart then too, so it’s probably safe to say I won’t be getting back to it.) Not sure if these shows were good or bad or just not coming at me the right way. Oh, oh! Devs I do want to finish that, but yes I do agree with others comments that the main character’s acting is… not the best.

MOVIES 

The Apostle - Starring Dan Stevens from Legion, The Guest and Downton Abbey this movie starts out a bit slow, but winds itself up to a flat out bonkers ending. Worth watching with the lights off and no bathroom breaks.

I started the great Korean action flick The Villainess, but I fell asleep before finishing it. Can someone call a movie great if they fall asleep during it? If that someone was absolutely thrilled by watching the opening sequence then yes, yes they can.

GAMES

Still finding myself indulging in the occasional Mario Kart binge. Also got some friends together for Bomberman which is frivolous fun. Spent a few hours back with Mario Odyssey too. Purchased Child of Light a few days ago so I’m hoping to get to that soon.

BOOKS/COMICS

Not much in the way of books month. In the comics world I did start JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but was thrown off by the revelation that the book I’m reading, which is marked book 1, is actually part two in the story. Shrug emoji.

I did finish the first trade in the Outcast series from writer Robert Kirkman, now superrich and superfamous creator of The Walking Dead  and not so famous, but no less talented, artist Paul Azaceta. It is filled with great dread and atmosphere. It does not wrap up the story in the first trade which always irks me.

MUSIC

I was excited to see that Fiona Apple’s new album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” came out! Then I listened to it. And listened to it again, and then listened to it one more time. It is an uneven album that frustrated me with how many songs are filled with the same refrain. I love the music, the writing not so much. That being said Under the Table, Rack of His and For Her are repeat listens for me.

Drake dropped a new album/mixtape called ”Dark Lane. Demo Tapes” and so continues my love/annoyance with Drake’s music. Listening to  Drake’s music is like being in a 60+ year marriage and still being very much in love, but absolutely hating how your partner chews with their mouth open.

RANDOM NOTES

I discovered Coco Rico soda in a local Asian Market. It’s a lovely sweet coconut beverage.

As mentioned earlier Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Popcorn is becoming my new go to snack. Move over Doritos Cool Ranch because Chester Cheetah is here!

I was in a good running routine and then it started snowing and raining all the time. Back to the couch for me.

That about sums it up for this month. Don’t be afraid to skip your next work Zoom meeting. The work will be there tomorrow.

#Watching tv #playing games #listening to music #reading comic books #what i'm consuming #MarkSarmeldoesthesethings

[wolf-555-writer]

Not Too Late

Sooo, I don’t really know if I conquered writers block, but this is me trying haha.

Alex Danvers x Reader

Summary: Reader works at DEO as an agent and has feelings for Director Danvers. But has never told her as she’s your boss. But maybe you should have, cause you never know when it’s too late...

Word Count: 1,835

Calmly sipping your well-deserved coffee as you sit on the couch. Completely relaxing, considering you finally have the day off. After turning on the TV you almost choke in the bitter liquid since you just took a large gulp. “What the h-”. You can’t even finish your sentence now that you’re gaping at the screen with your mouth wide open. Paralyzed for mere seconds before quickly putting the mug down on the table with a loud thud, spilling some coffee on the clean table surface. You jump up and grab your leather jacket while rushing towards the door. Wait… the keys?! Obviously not thinking clearly at the moment. You could barely slip your right foot between the almost closed door and doorpost and rush back inside. Keys? Check. Helmet? Check. You hop on your bike and speed away with screeching tires, leaving behind a black skid mark on the road.  

Driving like your life depends on it. Way too fast and passing many cars you encounter on route. It’s a miracle you haven’t caused any accidents along the way as you ignored some red lights. Luckily you’re almost there. Parking your motorcycle at a spot where it’s not allowed to place any vehicle at all. But you don’t care.

“I hope I’m not too late”, you desperately wish while reaching the entrance of the emergency unit at the hospital.

///

[Earlier that day]

“Okay, so we need patrols on these different locations”, Director Danvers commands while pointing at a map of National City. “The chopper will oversee the situation and can interfere if necessary. That’s also where I will be”.

“Count me in too”, you brightly answer while stepping forward. Separating you from the others as you’re gathered around with a number of agents who are also waiting to be assigned.

“(Y/N)? What are you still doing here?”, Alex responds surprised. “I thought I send you home to get some rest?”

“I don’t need to rest”, you claim while actually being exhausted to the bone. You’ve been working for three days straight now. But why rest? The Children of Liberty and the Elite don’t take a break, so why would you? They’re probably preparing their next mission of creating havoc around the city as we speak and you want to stop them before something disastrous happens.

“I know you want to help (Y/N). But I don’t want you to get hurt”, Alex caringly speaks. You can’t argue with that, knowing damn well you’re not fully concentrated due to being sleep-deprived. And of course it’s Alex, the Alex who has a special place in your heart.

“Just get some sleep (Y/N)”, as she gently touches your shoulder, stroking it lightly. But it’s the tone in her voice that makes you feel warm inside. Not that the words she just said are special, it’s simply the way she said it. With a loving, caring voice, a voice she never uses when talking to other agents. Only to you.

You suspect that Alex also has feelings for you. However you both never acted on it because, well, she’s the director of the DEO and you’re just a simple agent. You sigh quietly.

“Very well director Danvers, I wouldn’t dare to defy your orders”, you assure with a professional expression, arms crossed behind your back.  

You walk away and go home to get some sleep, seeing the other agents gear-up, preparing to leave DEO headquarters. Looking over your shoulder one last time before stepping into the elevator you lock eyes with Alex. Sending her a loving smile on which she sends you one back. Noticing the sparkling in her eyes.

“See you later Danvers”, you mouth while the elevator doors close, losing sight of her while she turns around, following the other agents. Doing what she does best, protecting aliens and people, facing the danger every time again. You lean against the elevator wall and stare at the ceiling. Eexhaling deeply as you close your eyes.

“I can’t wait forever. Maybe I should just tell her… before it’s too late”

///

Sprinting inside the hospital, trembling and shaking due to the adrenaline flooding your veins. You’ve been trained for these situations right? So why does this happen now? Jolting your head around to search for a doctor or a nurse.

“Where is she? Where is she?!” you yell like a maniac, flashing your ‘FBI’ badge hoping it will get you priority over the rest of the people who are also waiting to get noticed. Normally you wouldn’t do this, to let your emotions completely take over. Usually you’re calm and thoughtful, overthinking every sentence before you speak. Not now however, hands shaking and getting weak in your knees.

“(Y/N)?”, a voice behind you softly calls. You recognize it. It’s Kara, Alex her sister. You’ve known her for a while now as you sometimes provide a tiny bit of classified DEO information to her for her articles at CatCo. Alex is unaware of your illegal side activity and thinks that you’re just friends, which is actually true by the way. You turn around to face Kara and notice a concerned expression. “Come on, let’s sit so you can calm down”, she eases while grabbing your arm with both hands and pulling you towards the waiting area. You try to control your breathing, but for some reason it’s not working.

“Where is she? Where is Alex?”, you repeat again. Still clueless and sitting on the tip of the chair while nervously shaking your leg. “I-I saw on the news that the helicopter crashed…. And… is she…”, choking on the words as you’re not able to say it out loud. Is she dead? A terrible accident in National City was shown on the news and you recognized the DEO chopper. The entire incident took place while you were napping. You feel extremely guilty, because you could have been there, by her side. But you weren’t.   

“I was told she’s in surgery right now”, Kara replies while softly touching your arm. You flinch as you were lost in thoughts, viewing every doom scenario in your mind.

“So… so, she’s alive?”, you whisper with a hoarse sound.

“Of course she is, it’s Alex!”, Kara responds as if it’s the most logical thing in the world. However, she’s also scared. Scared Alex won’t make it, you can see it in her watery eyes.   

Waiting and waiting, which honestly feels like an eternity, as you’re still glued to the chair Kara sat you down in. You watch her restlessly pacing around in front of you. She had been marching back and forth for a while now. You swear you can almost see a trail appearing in the bleak hospital floor. Kara abruptly stopped now that two doctors approach her. You try to read their body language yet you can’t seem to conclude anything from it. Jumping out of the chair and placing yourself directly next to Kara, you listen to the conversation.

“Miss Danvers successfully underwent surgery and is currently monitored in the ICU. You can see her if you want”, one speaks to Kara. Wait… are you not allowed to see her?

“What about me?!” you quickly urge, clearly using the wrong tone which is not appreciated by the doctors.

“You are not family, so-”, the doctor is interrupted by Kara who swiftly stepped in front of you as if she’s protecting you with her life. “Well, not by blood maybe, but (Y/N) is family”, giving them her fiercest look, both hands on her hips. It apparently helped, judging by their response.  

“Okay, well then, follow me”

While walking towards the ICU you feel your heartbeat pounding in your throat. Unaware in what state you’ll find Alex. Strolling towards the room and not even noticing your legs moving. You feel like a zombie, being completely numb and not hearing the doctors as they’re explaining the entire procedure they carried out to save Alex her life.

When you’ve reached the room, you quietly look at her, asleep in a hospital bed. Immediately feeling a tightness in your chest. You can see some bruising on her arms and a couple of scars on her face. Besides that she seems peaceful.

“You can come closer if you want (Y/N)” Kara suggest as she stands next to the bed, close to Alex. You're still standing at the door, entirely frozen, blindly staring into the distance.  

“You’re not too late”, Kara continues.  

“Not too late for what?”, you ask while slowly walking towards the bed. Carefully placing yourself at the other side next to the monitor that displays her heart rate, blood pressure and other important measures.   

“It’s too obvious (Y/N), just tell her”, Kara remarks with a piercing gaze fixed on you.

“Oh, um… okay”, you stammer back at Kara as you’re a little intimidated by her. A bright red blush appearing on your cheeks. “Wait, you mean, like, right now?”

“Yes! Now!”

“Okay then. Um, Alex, I know I’m sometimes an emotionless brick at work. But- but I care about you, I care... a lot”, while you hold her hand gently, caressing her warm skin with your thumb.

“Is this your way of confessing your feelings?”, Kara countered as she lifts an eyebrow.  

“Don’t judge me”, you mutter at Kara. As you said that, you felt a soft squeeze in your hand and avert your eyesight to it.

“K-kara? (Y/N)?”

Quickly looking up at Alex you see her eyelids twitching.

“(Y/N)? Is that… you?”. Now fully opening her eyes and staring at you with her charming brown ones.

“Yeah I'm here”, you softly speak, squeezing Alex her hand tighter.

“So…. did- did you get some sleep?”, she whispers with a croaky voice.

“Wait… What? Seriously Alex? You’re asking me-”

“It’s Director Danvers”, she interrupts with an authoritative tone.

“But… didn’t you hear what I just... confessed?”, you mumble with a sad look, deflecting your eyes to the ground. A small grin appears on Alex her scarred face.

“No, It’s okay, I did hear you”, she admits, weakly pulling on your hand which caused you to look at her again. “And (Y/N), I feel the same”. A loving smile appears and also that red blush you had earlier is back.

“Good… you scared me there for a minute”, as you rub your neck nervously. “That scared you?”, Kara blunty responds. “What about the other events today?”

“Oh, eh, yes the whole helicopter crash had us terrified. And I wasn’t there with you… I-I just, what if you...”, you feel a teardrop running down your face upon which it lands on the bed sheet.

“Don’t cry (Y/N). All that matters is that I’m alive and that you’re here now”, Alex comforts with that loving tone again. Still holding her hand tight, you bring it to your lips and press a tender kiss on her knuckles. You softly whisper:

“There is nowhere else I would rather be than here, next to you”

#alex danvers x reader #alex danvers #alex danvers imagine #alex danvers x you #alex danvers fic #supergirl #supergirl imagine #kara danvers #wlw imagine #wlw fiction #fanfiction

[aethucyn]

All the Comics 2019

Series I read as they came out:

Archie Assassin Nation Batman Universe Black Panther By Night Catwoman Die Exorsisters Ghosted in L.A. Ghostspider Giant Days Gwenpool Strikes Back Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy Invisible Kingdom Laguardia Last Stop on the Red Line Lazarus: Risen Lois Lane The Magnificent Ms. Marvel Man-Eaters Monstress Ms. Marvel Once & Future King Paper Girls Pretty Deadly: The Rat Redlands Sabrina the Teenage Witch Sleepless Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider Spider-man and Venom: Double Trouble Steeple Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl The Unstoppable Wasp West Coast Avengers The White Trees The Wicked + the Divine

Graphic Novels & Trade Paperbacks

The Life of Captain Marvel Margaret Stohl Carlos Pacheco Batgirl Vol. 4: Strange Loop Hope Larson Sami Basri Jessica Jones: Blind Spot Kelly Thompson Mattia De Iulis Doom Patrol Vol 2: Nada Gerard Way Nick Derington Kim Reaper: Grim Beginnings Sarah Graley Batman Vol. 8: Cold Days Tom King Lee Weeks Hilda and the Troll Luke Pearson Batwoman Vol. 3: Fall of the House of Kane Marguerite Bennett Fernando Blanco X-23: Family Album Mariko Tamaki Juann Cabal Andre the Giant: Life and Legend Box Brown How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less Sarah Glidden Get Your War On David Rees March Book One John Lewis & Andrew Aydin Nate Powell Barbarous Vol 1 Ananth Hirsh Yuko Ota Barbarous Vol 2 Ananth Hirsh Yuko Ota March Book Two John Lewis & Andrew Aydin Nate Powell March Book Three John Lewis & Andrew Aydin Nate Powell The Real Folk Blues: A Cowboy Bebop Fanbook Anthology ed. Zainab Akhtar Batman Detective Comics Vol 2 The Victim Syndicate James Tynion IV Alvaro Martinez Off Season James Sturm Kiss Number 8 Colleen AF Venable Ellen T. Crenshaw Cleopatra in Space: Fallen Empires Mike Maihack Batman Detective Comics Vol 3: League of Shadows James Tynion IV Marcio Takara The Hero Business Season Two Bill Walko When I Arrived at the Castle Emily Carroll The Weather Man Jody LeHeup Nathan Fox The Girl Who Married a Skull & Other African Stories ed. C. Spike Trotman ed. Kate Ashwin ed. Kel McDonald ed. Taneka Stotts F*ck Off Squad Nicole Goux Dave Baker The Breakaways Cathy G. Johnson Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me Mariko Tamaki Rosemary Valero-O'Connell Batman Vol. 9 The Tyrant Wing Tom King Tom Taylor Mech Cadet Yu Volume Two Grek Pak Takeshi Miyazawa Sincerely, Harriet Sarah W. Searle The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire Part One Michael Dante DiMartino Michelle Wong Avatar The Last Airbender: Imbalance Book Two Faith Erin Hicks Peter Wartman Snotgirl: vol 2: California Screaming Bryan Lee O'Malley Leslie Hung Skyward: Vol 1 Joe Henderson Lee Garbett Shuri: Vol 1: The Search for Black Panther Nnedi Okorafor Leonardo Romero Crowded: Vol 1: Soft Apocalypse Chrisopher Sebela Ro Stein Ted Brandt I Hate Fairyland: Vol 1: Madly Ever After Skottie Young I Hate Fairyland: Vol 2: Fluff My Life Skottie Young I Hate Fairyland: Vol 3: Good Girl Skottie Young I Hate Fairyland: Vol 4:  Sadly Never After Skottie Young California Dreamin' Penelope Bagieu Runaways: Best Friends Forever Rainbow Rowell Kris Anka Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles Mark Russell Mike Feehan My Brother's Husband Gengorah Tagame Rice Boy Evan Dahm FTL Y'all ed. C. Spike Trotman ed. Amanda Lafrenais Gothic Tales of Haunted Love ed. Hope Nicholson ed. S.M.Beiko The Immortal Hulk: Or is he both? Al Ewing Joe Bennett X-23: X-Assassin Mariko Tamaki Diego Olortegui Ant-Man and the Wasp: Lost and Found Mark Waid Javier Garron Power Man and Iron Fist: The Boys Are Back in Town David Walker Sanford Greene Iceman: Thawing Out Sina Grace Alessandro Vitti Iceman: Absolute Zero Sina Grace Robert Gill Song of Aglaia Anne Simon Batman Detective Comics: Vol 4 Deus Ex Machina James Tynion IV Alvaro Martinez Harley Quinn: Broken Glass Mariko Tamaki Steve Pugh The Immortal Hulk: The Green Door Al Ewing Joe Bennett Power Man and Iron Fist: Civil War David F. Walker Flaviano Cosplayers Dash Shaw Bad Machinery: The Case of the Modern Men John Allison Is This How You See Me? Jaime Hernandez a city inside Tillie Walden The Immotal Hulk: Hulk in Hell Al Ewing Joe Bennett Slowly but Shirley Catalina Rufin Stage Dreams Melanie Gillman Homunculus Joe Sparrow Verse Book One Sam Beck Laid Waste Julia Gfrorer Gorgeous Cathy G. Johnson Cosmoknights Hannah Templer The Hard Tomorrow Eleanor Davis Pumpkin Heads Rainbow Rowell Faith Erin Hicks Funky Town Mathilde Van Gheluwe Pleading with Stars Kurt Ankeny Avatar The Last Airbender: Imbalance Book Three Faith Erin Hicks Peter Wartman The Love Bunglers Jaime Hernandez Spider-man Life Story Chip Zdarsky Mark Bagley Are You Listening? Tillie Walden November Matt Fraction Elsa Charretier Rusty Brown Chris Ware Dangerously Chloe Volume 3 David Lumsdon Jason Waltrip The Astonishing Ant-Man: Small-Time Criminal Nick Spencer Ramon Rosanas Doctor Aphra: Aphra Kieron Gillen Kev Walker Moonstruck Grace Ellis Shae Beagle

Minis

Maids no. 1 Katie Skelly Frontier #18 Tiffany Ford Two of Us Jessi Zabarsky Visiting Alivia Horsley Sobek James Stokoe Resort on Caelum Wren McDonald Boogsy Michelle Kwan Frontier #19 Hannah Waldron Maids no. 2 Katie Skelly Frontier #20 Anatola Howard Minotaar Lissa Treiman Pass the Baton Hana Chatani Cry Wolf Girl Ariel Ries At the Edge of the Stream at Dusk Jen Lee Cavity Michelle Theodore Hsthete Melanie Gillman David, I Love You Eileen Marie The Cutest Curse Laura Terry Churn Amelia Onorato An Eye for an Eye Kimberly Wang Women on Paper: 3 Stories Anna Christine Liminal State Maria Photinakis Melusine, The Collector and the Gift of the Pearls Edie Voges Infinite Wheat Paste Issue 3 Pidge Anew Dillon Gilbertson Anastasia Longoria Big Wally James McGarry Sam Bennett Frontier #21 Derek Yu Frontier #22 Tunde Adebimpe

Graphic novel is a stupid term that often encompasses things that are not novels, but I used it as a blanket term for anything comics I read that were bound rather than stapled. Minis are shorter works, stapled, and generally self-published by the artist, or done by a small press like Shortbox or Youth in Decline. I was totally lazy about crediting creators on series because my actual list for that is a grid, keeping track of each issue. Similarly, when listing creators on trades, I tended to only list writer and artist which is enough for some books, but sometimes there are many more, inkers, and colorists and letterers, and maybe I’ll do better next year.

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