#all my faves going on vacation or leaving just as our heros are returning like ships in the night

[hamable]

Fantasy high junior year is so real. Funniest shit I’ve ever heard for one half of the episode and the most real, tangible post-road-trip exhaustion and dread of having to return to responsibilities and how heavy it all is in the second half and it’s just so good.

[nixie-deangel]

This may seem like a lot but I'm new to the Coldflash/Coldwestallen fandom and was wondering if you had any recs? (Also your aesthetics are so pretty and I love your blog theme wow)

Thank you so much! And it’s no trouble, I love gushing about my fave fics/writers. Just, uh, remember you asked for my babbling on this!

So damn, do we have some AMAZINGLY talented creators in this fandom. We are truly blessed! 

So pretty much anything written by @coldtomyflash, @crimsondomingo, @asexual-fandom-queen, @robininthelabyrinth, @katyakora, @lotusvalkyrie and @coldflashwave-baby. Some other mentions would definitely be @amuletgays, @sophiainspace, @meowitskatmofo, @sugar-haus, @stillnotginger10, @niennavalier and @pheuthe. 

I’m missing so many great creators (I know I am) but I think this is a pretty good list for a newbie for the Coldflash/Coldwestallen fandoms.

Some of them are multishippers (like myself) but Hades, all are worth checking out, even if its not Coldflash/ColdWestAllen. 

Below is a, uh, pretty good reading list to check out. 

Coldflash:

Out Cold. - Captain Cold’s plan for a bit of fun with his nemesis results in more than he bargained for when a head wound from dashing to Flash’s rescue leaves him without any memories of who he or The Flash is. As Barry nurses Len back to health, both of them quickly start to hope that he never remembers being Captain Cold as the attraction they feel for each other turns into something more without the pitfalls of being enemies to stand in their way.

AU with everything having happened up to the Season 1 finale, except Eddie shot Eobard instead of himself, killing him, and the singularity didn’t happen.

Cover Up. - Lisa drags a disapproving Len down to The Flash Tattoo Studio to watch her get a tattoo, but during her session, Len becomes drawn to the artist, tattoo artist extraordinaire Barry Allen. After seeing the amazing job he does on Lisa’s one-of-a-kind tattoo, he decides to chance asking Barry for help covering up a secret he has, one that he wears on his back, underneath his clothes, and speaks of every foul thing his father ever did to him.

(AU with some nods to canon. Mention of Lisa dating Cisco. Barry has his speed force powers…maybe. Len’s story line is pretty much the only one that stays truest to form. Just for visualization purposes, Lisa’s about 25, Barry’s about 27, and Len’s about 32.)

Tumbling Together. - When Barry and Len discover that they’ve accidentally become neighbors, they learn to navigate their new living situation amongst misunderstandings and a surprising amount of common ground.

AKA the fun-as-it-comes Neighbors!AU which turns into a Pretend Relationship!AU filled with tropes, hijinks, and some vague notion of a plot.

Would You, Could You. - A High School AU Series. 

The Flower That Blooms In Adversity (Is The Most Rare And Beautiful Of All). - When someone falls in unrequited love, flowers begin growing inside their body, gradually killing them. The flowers go away if the love becomes returned or if a surgical operation removes the flowers. However, surgery removes not only the flowers but the feeling of love itself, and Barry has never been willing to give that up.

Bad Day? - A homicide involving a trans woman puts Barry in a painful place at work, and with himself. He doesn’t expect to find comfort from Leonard Snart, of all people, no matter what feelings Barry may harbor for the other man.

There’s a Menace In My Bed; Can You See His Silhouette. - When The Flash is put under the influence of a metahuman’s heinous lust power, Captain Cold ends up caught in the crossfire.  (Heed the Tags)

The Good in You (the Bad in Me). - Before Starling and before the particle accelerator, Barry meets Lisa and Leonard Snart.

In which Barry makes some unexpected friends, inadvertently launches a promising criminal career by accidentally starting a few (literal) fires, and maybe starts to fall for a certain overdramatic thief.  (WIP)

Shovel Talk. - Barry warned him that people might try to give Len the shovel talk, now that Barry had decided to bring his and Len’s year-old relationship into the light. Len never said he was going to be nice about letting them.

Love Me. - A meta-human with Cupid-like powers whammies Barry to fall in love with the first person he sees. Just his luck it happened to be Captain Cold.

(“He hasn’t let go of me for almost an hour,” says Len, focusing his steel on Cisco, who shrinks considerably.

“’Cause I love you,” says Barry beside him, his teeth gleaming as he grins. He tries to kiss Len again—god, the seventh time?)

Realm of Darkness. - Barry was a young god craving chaos and Leonard was the deadly king of the Underworld seeking peace.

A Hades/Persephone AU with powers/Greek Mythology

Maybe Somewhat Out Of The Ordinary. - “That’s not a wolf,” Barry told Cisco, pretty convinced except for the small voice in the back of his mind that had been screaming at him for the past four months that there was a predator very close by. “That’s my dog.”

Hokey Religions and Ancient Weapons. - May the Speed Force be with you.

A Week on Rogue’s Mountain. - Leonard Snart has organized a special Christmas-time retreat for all his closest pals. Unfortunately for Barry Allen… there’s a secret Santa auction, and he’s on the block.

ColdWestAllen: 

What We Become (Depends on What Our Fathers Teach Us). - Family dinner at the West-Allen house, featuring Leonard Snart in the role of Not-A-Father.

What Brings Us Together. - After a brief encounter with a mysterious stranger while on vacation, Iris found herself with an unexpected souvenir. Luckily, she has Barry there to support her. She never expected to run into that stranger again. To be fair, Len never expected to find out he was a father while on a morning coffee run.

I’m Covered in the Colours (Pulled Apart at the Seams). - It’s a common misconception that people can only see in black and white until they meet their soulmate.

When Barry Allen is born, he’s only able to see the colour red. When he meets Iris West in Kindergarten, she gives him yellow. When he meets Leonard Snart thwarting an armoured car robbery, he gives him blue.

Should’ve Known Better. - Seven sexy roleplay ideas that Barry, Len, and Iris came up with together…that were not good ideas.

Really, their lives would be so much easier if they weren’t all such sticklers for accuracy.

I Don’t See an Easy Way to Get out of This. - Iris and Leonard go to unspeakable lengths to stay alive. Barry gets caught in the fallout, and it’s a beautiful disaster.  (Heed the tags)

Cold Truth. - Christmas may have been the first time they met, but Iris has known Leonard Snart a lot longer than she thought

All I See Are These Strange Tides. - Empathy causes more problems than you might think.

In which a struggling teenage metahuman meets her heroes and attempts to give them the best reward she can think of: happiness.

(Also, not to toot my own horn, but you can also check out my writing here.)

If you check them out, don’t forget to leave a comment, as well as some kudos!

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 12/26/18

Abara | By Tsutomu Nihei | Viz Media – Although it’s up for debate how directly or tangentially related Abara actually is to Knights of Sidonia, in my mind the manga is unquestionably a precursor to Nihei’s later work. Even if they take different forms, the two series at the very least share elements of the same dystopic vision, a grim future in which humanity’s survival is not guaranteed in the face of the existence of creatures known as Gauna. Collected in a single, deluxe hardcover volume (along with another of Nihei’s earlier stories, “Digimortal”), Abara feels like the beginning of something grand even while being a complete work unto itself. Rather than prioritizing a narrative telling a coherent story, more than anything else the plot serves as a vehicle to showcase Nihei’s artwork and the astonishing, nightmarish atmosphere it creates. And that is just fine—the illustrations in Abara are stunning, managing to be simultaneously  beautiful and grotesque. – Ash Brown

Again!!, Vol. 6 | By Mitsurou Kubo | Kodansha Comics – In the original timeline, the fate of the ouendan was sealed when Usami was responsible for a disaster at a baseball practice game. This time, Imamura is working very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. True, he still blames himself for the team’s eventual loss, since he wounded the pitcher’s fragile ego, but some things have clearly changed as a result of his actions. Namely, Usami is able to get the crowd on their side, rallying their spirits with her cheers when all seemed lost, and earning some praise from the school principal for her leadership. Sometimes this series is frustrating in that characters have to work harder for the kind of sports manga successes that make me sniff, but man, there are a few brief, glorious moments in this volume that are all the sweeter for having been hard-won. – Michelle Smith

Giant Spider & Me, Vol. 3 | By Kikori Morino | Seven Seas – There’s a bit of seriousness at the start of the third Giant Spider manga, as we find out why our kidnapper is so upset about the spider—his daughter was clawed by a cute baby bear, and died from an infection from the wounds. The rest of the volume, though, is relatively sedate, and even the big finale, in which Asa appears to be either ill or grumpy but is merely molting is pretty low-key. And yes, it’s a big finale as this is the final volume, even though the author says they know Nagi and Asa have lots more adventures. This is the sort of series that doesn’t really need a dramatic climax, but Nagi has changed thanks to her giant spider friend—she’s now surrounded by other friends as well. This was sweet. – Sean Gaffney

Girls’ Last Tour, Vol. 5 | By Tsukumizu| Ywn Press – Each volume of this gets darker than the last, while still maintaining its mood of “two girls wander around a city in their tank.” Chito almost dies a couple of times, and sprains her ankle at one point, leading to Yuu attempting to do leader-like things, which does lead to some laughs. And there’s a fascinating sequence when they look at modern art in a deserted museum. They’re still going up, though, and are helped in this (after breaking into a building using more high explosives) by an AI unit that begs for them to turn it off. We also get a flashback to how their journey began, showing that they were kids staying with adults at one point, and that things are terrible all over. One more volume to go. Will it end in death? – Sean Gaffney

Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends, Vol. 16 | By Yomi Hirasaka and Itachi | Seven Seas – The big surprise in this volume is that the student council president happens to be Yozora’s older sister. We’ve seen for a while that family issues are a large part of what makes Yozora the way she is, and it’s no surprise that she’s in a relatively foul mood this volume, where the Neighbors Club and the Student Council go on a vacation together. Before that, though, we do get Yozora returning to the Neighbors Club, and a virtual reality game that I will just gloss over as I found it the weakest part of the book. And for fans of Kodaka and Sena, there’s the final scene, even though it’s just a dream that… Rika has? Why is Rika dreaming of things like that? A good, fun volume, though even more perverse than usual. – Sean Gaffney

Hakumei & Mikochi: Tiny Little Life in the Woods, Vol. 3 | By Takuto Kashiki | Yen Press – Adorable and relaxing take a back seat to ADVENTURE in this volume, as Conju is kidnapped while in a “rough section” of town, requiring a rescue that involves a lost liquor, hang-gliding, and lots of faux badasses who really aren’t all that. It’s a heck of a lot of fun, and really shows off our heroes at their best. They also do well taking Hakumei’s boss out for a day on the town, showing him that life is not just work 24/7. And there’s a chapter involving sweets and some badgers that is quite funny. I’m really enjoying this series, though it has to be said—Hakumei and Mikochi are a married couple, they’re just not aware of it yet. (Nor do I expect that to change.) – Sean Gaffney

Hatsu*Haru, Vol. 4 | By Shizuki Fujisawa | Yen Press – How much you enjoy this volume may depend on how much you can take “I am oblivious to even a direct confession” on the part of Riko, which makes Kai once again spend half the book holed up in his room wondering where everything went wrong. Even when he returns to school and tries to take up his playboy ways once more, things go wrong—right now Riko needs a good friend more than a boyfriend, and if Kai’s not there, well, maybe Takaya will do. (Honestly, Takaya seems to be like he has his own issues, which I suspect may get revealed in a future volume.) Will Riko ever get Kai’s feelings? Does she like him back? Is she even ready to move on? And what of Ayumi, the intrepid newshound? Hatsu*Haru is a well-written soap. – Sean Gaffney

Horimiya, Vol. 12 | By Hero and Daisuke Hagiwara | Yen Press – I imagine there may be some people who have dropped Horimiya by now, and I get it—Hori is sort of a terrible person, groping her friends and joking about getting “technical” consent, and still being upset that Miyamura isn’t hitting her like she really wants him to. She’s a bit of a teenage mess, really. Fortunately, the cast around her have their shit together, so I don’t think things will get that bad. Honestly, seeing Hori groping Sakura reminded me that Sakura is one of the group now—in fact, one chapter has other students surmise that she may have a harem of hot guys. I still love reading Horimiya, even as it’s gone from “romance I’d happily recommend” to “problematic fave.” – Sean Gaffney

Slumbering Beauty, Vol. 2 | By Yumi Unita | Seven Seas – For the most part this was an OK, not great final volume of this series. The majority of it deals with Nerimu’s master trying to recruit Yoneko for the job permanently, and Nerimu trying to point out that this would involve essentially dying. That said, there was a fantastic moment near the end, as Yoneko is shown that her neglectful parents started off with good intentions and are not merely terrible people. And Yoneko says that this is true, and acknowledges it… but also reminds readers (and Nerimu) that the majority of her time growing up has been spent unhappy, and seeing that her parents have good sides as well is not going to change that. Still, at least she decides to live on for now. Like other Unita series, this was weird but worth reading. – Sean Gaffney

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 10 | By Wataru Watanabe | Yen Press – The third and final day of the Inter-High begins and since Midousuji got a somewhat sympathetic backstory that might be the start of a redemption arc of sorts it’s time to introduce another odious foe, this time in the form of Eikichi Machimiya, a schemer from Hiroshima who’s got a huge grudge against Hakone due to how things played out the previous year. This is a pretty fun volume, since Machimiya organizes a huge peloton that gobbles up stray riders, Jaws-like, and Sohoku must contend with leaving Onoda—who worked so hard on previous days for the team—behind to be devoured. Tadokoro even cries. Of course, plucky Onoda can’t be counted out yet, but neither can Hiroshima! Looking forward to the next installment, as always. – Michelle Smith

By: Ash Brown