#eil's random thoughts

[your-husband-brother-yu]

solo leveling's sung jinwoo and omniscient reader's viewpoint's kim dokja is a ship?

i mean, i have actually read a lot of fics and oh god, they look good together and i don't do crossover ships that much, but i have never thought of this until i saw it

[lazyrainymysoul]

update: as much as i want to post the prologue and continue the chapter 1 that i have written for that villainess isekai mobius, it's ✨finals week✨ and that means more school work but hey, before christmas i could probably post it

[iobartach]

have a quick(?) rambling / shallow(?) dive on the verses i got for this blog, bc boi i got some thinkings ;

soo i've got three 'core' canon..ish... verses so to say, which are;

comhrá an bhaile mhóir seo

pre-atsv miguel, covering young!miguel, alchemax!miguel, vigilante!miguel, etc. all earth-928 based. basically covers everything before he goes messing with multi-verse tech. probs will be slightly more quippy & approachable here? i just can't write quips to save my life. 🥴bourbon's human!lyla also plays a big role in this, they're quite close!! as for the inclusions of dana.... hah :') xina though, yes. he still despises both george & tyler with a passion, and relations with... conchata... and also even gabriel are, for this verse... rockyyy... to say the least.

trasnaigh an rubaicón

the main boi. and the default verse for crossovers especially. atsv based, with miguel being a leader and an absolutely changed and grieving man. i'm really enjoying putting him all over the place, especially in the present. take heed around him. main objective is stopping anomalies, and making sure more dimensions don't, uh,,, get destroyed,,, also gabriel's still alive... r-right, movie? you wouldn't kill him off too,,, would you, movie? :')))

fear as am

kind of one aimed mostly at 616 / comics things. might occasionally use this at random, but it's more for interactions with chars who are 616 based and not mcu / movie affiliated. my spin on this is it follows the premise of necessary evil , where stone basically fucks him over and strands him in the past, but with atsv!mig instead of comics!mig. still ironing out the details how this happened. (maybe the portal functionality of his dimensional gizmo got blocked or something?) idk, still needs work!

now for the au's!!!

an chéad chéim eile

prototype au. absolutely hit the ground running with this! tysm, sen! premise is miguel becomes an evolved -- replete with all the body horror such a transformation could possibly entail ( read - he gets spidery limbs 👀 ) i gotta yell at u, sen & abraxas (heyo 👋) more about this, but if more folks are also interested... hmu 👀

is fearr a fhios ag athair

a venture crafted w/ gabriella-trn1042's spider!gabri. alt take on atsv verse, whilst also amping up the 'miguel goes fucking around with genetics again' vibes. as close to villain!miguel as i might dare get, with the core premise of miguel turning a variant gabriella into a spider creature , with mig himself doing a good ol' heel-monster turn himself. loaded with angst and body horror. heavy on 'the fly' vibes, if you've seen that movie. been thinking of opening this up to other plots, if i can keep the core of this au intact... any takers? 🤔 gonna add a caveat tho that anything for this verse will likely need to be plotted.

laoch imithe dul ar strae

overwatch au. i... had a kernel of an idea for this verse... but i forgot to write it down. 🥴 may need to work shop this -- think i had the vague idea of saying it's scientist!miguel w/ gene implanting work existing in this au, but makes him a target of talon and the like?

lúb bheag i slabhra mór

kinddd of a corpo!miguel / cyberpunk 2077 au? might just split this out into separate verses eventually, but this is one that i'm currently trying to cook up ( inspiration is... mmm :') ) basic premise for this , if leaning into cyberpunk 2077 side, is miguel's an arasaka stooge, with links to the relic biochip. ik, ik.. i... need to work on it. 🥴

ocras buile

bleach au. basically zombie!miguel, turned by contact with sternritter gigi's / giselle's blood, when alive. that's... about the extent of what i have for now,,,, needa plot / use it more!

ag troid ar nós an

kengan ashura au. made simply bc i could and i just,,, loved the thought of having miguel brawl for alchemax ,,, sue me ,,, 👀 i could also go the whole nine yards and say that, pssst, maybe miguel's a corporate raider in this au, enhanced by his one gene imprinting tech ... trust me, give me an inch, i'll take a damn mile 😂so if anyone's interested...? 👀

----

anddd that's it for now!!! will there be more au's in future? probably! i just can't think of anything extra, aside from a wrestler au?

i'm always open to ideas and suggestions for aus tho? 👀 even if i don't know the fandom, i might still give it a try! you never know!!

[a-persistent-cat]

I finally got around to watching The Witcher : Blood Origin, and I’m just super confused why everyone hates it so much. I mean yeah, okay, it wasn’t exactly God Tier Cinema or anything, but neither was The Witcher. It definitely took itself more seriously, and I wonder if maybe people went into it expecting the same light hearted camp that came from The Witcher? But that doesn’t change the fact that while Blood Origin did have some issues, and it took a different approach that The Witcher, it was still entertaining.

My overactive mind wants to say people’s seemingly uncalled for hate has more to do with the current state of society and perhaps how the plot gets a little too close to the truth for some people’s comfort. You know, a young idealistic girl with good intentions but no firm grasp on reality tries to fix things that SHE thinks are unfair and and only makes things worse for everyone… I mean, honestly, I was on her side right up until the point where she started trying to actively take control of the situation. But I also realized from the very beginning how badly that was going to end, where she was too naive to realize what she was going up against. I will admit, her ending was unsatisfying. Like you see the moment she realizes what she did, and then decided at the very end, rather than acknowledge it or apologize, she uses that opportunity to tell people not to forget her? It’s like a 180 followed by another 180 three seconds later.

Fucking Balor. He was such an amazing villain, okay? This is what I want all of my villains to be like. A guy who worked his ass off to overcome every obstacle in his way and make a life for himself while simultaneously holding the trauma of being a low born until it basically turned him into something so much worse than the monsters that had been holding him back his whole life. It’s just. Guh. Like I hate you because you’re awful, but also I feel for you because you’re a product of your environment.

Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe I get it. You have these seven heroes, the main characters, who you spend a majority of the show watching, but they’re all kind of underdeveloped compared to the villains. They’re boring archetypes with no real soul. You can root for them because they’re the “good guys”, but they’re not terribly interesting. Except for Meldof (anyone else feel super weird when writing fantasy names? Like where does this shit even come from? A random letter generator?). But even Scian is kind of a cliche, but I do think she did so well at pulling that cliche off that it wasn’t quite as annoying as it could have been. And even they are slightly off to the side main characters. And Eile, who does have an interesting back story, the concept of a warrior deciding to become a traveling bard then going back to being a warrior for revenge or redemption is another cliche. And I’m sorry, but major Mary Sue alert, okay? Then you have Fjall, who is straight up boring. And they’re the two main characters. Why wasn’t the same amount of thought put into developing the TWO MAIN CHARACTERS as was put into the two main villains?

And yeah, it was predictable. So, so predictable. The only time I was caught off guard was when it turned out that Callan followed them because he wanted to help them, not turn them in for the bounty. And when Scian went to the palace, I had a brief moment of surprise before I realized what she was doing. But honestly, I never really go into anything expecting to be surprised, so I’m never disappointed in that respect.

I might eventually go through an episode by episode recap or review or whatever thingy. Because I actually really enjoyed this one.

[krinsbez]

The DC Identity-Swap AU: A World/Storybuilding Fanfic Project (that needs a better name)

What follows is what has been come up with for a DC Universe where many heroes and villains ended up with different identities, initially conceived of by comradepitrovsky and expanded on by me and others.

In some cases, the said heroes ended up with different supporting cast members, in others not.

Let us begin, with the founding members of the Justice League: -Superwoman: Diana Kent, the Last Daughter of Paradise. For…reasons, Themyiskara had to go to another dimension, but baby Diana couldn’t come, so at Hippolyta’s request, the Olympians sent her to a Patriarch’s World couple who would raise her right, namely Jonathan and Martha. She’s dating Lois Lane and her archenemy is Lex Luthor, with whom, I want to be clear, there is ZERO Foe Yay, because she’s disgusted by him, and he’s intimidated by her. -Green Lantern: Kal-El of Krypton, who the Guardians appointed to lead the Corps through the transition to running itself. Came to Earth because he needed a break, stuck around because sweet RAO this planet needs help. He managed to keep Sinestro from going off the deep end, so he’s part of the Council Kal set-up to help him run the Corps, along with Kilowog, Mogo, Abin Sure and…not sure. -Zatara: Bruce Wayne. After his parent’s deaths, Bruce was adopted by their close friend John Zatara, who realized the kid was tied to the demon Barbatos, and they figgered out a way for him to use that power for good. -Captain Marvel: Barry Allen, while studying Forensic Science in college, took some classes, and became friends, with Archeology Student C. C. Batson (there is considerable overlap between the two fields, right?). When Batson and his wife were murdered during a dig in Egypt, Barry offered to help with the investigation, and ended up becoming SHAZAM’s champion. -The Flash: Hal Jordan, test pilot for Ferris Aircraft, was struck by lightning whilst flying their latest prototype, and ended up tied to the Speed Force. (Note, like Johnny and Jessie Quick, can fly) -Hawkman and Hawkgirl: Arthur Curry and Dinah Lance. The former encountered the wreck of a Thanagarian spaceship whilst exploring underwater and ended up with the soul of Prince Khufu. Dinah was hanging around her Uncle Carter's place and had something similar happen with the soul of Chay-Ara. -Martian Manhunter. J'onn is exactly the same. Other thoughts, somewhat random, in no particular order: -Ollie was zeta beam'd from The Island to Rann instead of Adam Strange. -Adam is instead Metamorpho. -Eel managed to drag himself to Slaughter Swamp before succumbing to his wounds and so ended up becoming Swamp Thing. -Owing to…complicated feelings WRT to her adopted brother, Zatanna ended up hanging around with her dad’s colleague Thaddeus Brown, and took up his mantle instead, becoming Madame Miracle, Magical Escape Artist! -T. O. Morrow built Red Torpedo first, she got possessed by a water elemental somehow, rebelled against his programming, and ended up traveling to Atlantis, overthrew the tyrant Orm, was acclaimed Queen, married Mera, and now fights crime on the surface as Aquawoman. (I’m gonna say she sometimes wears a human disguise that looks Aquawoman-11, because I fancy her and will use almost any excuse to get her into one of these things) -Ray Palmer and Ralph Dibny became Firestorm. -Instead of becoming Cheetah, Barbara-Ann seized the power of Teth-Adam and became Captain Marvel’s archenemy. -Pam became the Cheetah instead, and is an enemy of The Flash, with no small amount of Foe Yay. -In addition to that, Hal is also in a Love Triangle with Carol and Lady Blackhawk, who came to work for Ferris after arriving in the 21st Century due to time travel shenanigans. Arguably a Love Quadrangle, since he's competing with his alter ego. -Selina and Helena are both Star Sapphires and both of them are pursuing Kal-El, who is receptive to both. -Barry is still with Linda, Wally is Capt. Marvel, Jr. -The Batson Twins became Superboy and Supergirl, but I haven't come up with specifics. Help please? -Bruce adopted Raven and Garth. Suggestions for codenames? -In an effort to gain the power to defeat Superwoman, Lex made a deal with Ares, confident that he could handle the God of War. He is now possessed by Ares, but has no idea, assuming that the ideas Ares puts in his head are entirely his own, because he’s too arrogant to believe anyone else can control or manipulate him. It helps that Ares largely approves of Lex’s ideas and doesn’t need to do much. As a side-eeffect, Lex’s power armor has a distinctly Ares-y feel to it. -Klarion is in Bruce’s Rogue’s Gallery. Said Rogue's Gallery also includes the Sivana family. Which means that yes, Bruce is dating Beautia. -Bruce's archnemesis is the man who in the normal reality became Black Manta, who I've always headcanoned as choosing to torment Arthur purely by random chance, and obviously picked differently here. Since there's no need for a nautical theme, he uses a different codename; Black Bat. -The first thing Kal-El did after completing training was rescue Kandor. Brainiac swore vengeance, and upon escaping from the Sciencells, discovered how to harness the Yellow Light of Fear. In addition to using it himself, he also unleashed a number of Phantom Zone criminals, took over their minds, and equipped his enslaved army with Yellow Rings.

-The Olympians left Diana some magic thingummy that allowed her to be trained in Amazon combat techniques, etc. in her dreams or something, because she needs something to make up for the lack of super-senses, but if she has the Lasso, I'm not sure how Lex can be a problem for her?

-Dick was adopted by the Dibnys, got himself the Gingold Extract, and fights crime as Firestorm’s sidekick, Elastic Lad.

-Mister Mind is one of Diana’s Rogues.

-Dr. Psycho is in Hal's Rogue's Gallery. Presumably, wossname the guy who framed him so he could steal his fiancee Mavra didn't do quite as good a job gaslighting her, she found out the truth, and he murdered her to cover it up. He is therefore unable to blame her for the plot in a feeble and cowardly attempt to save himself when Psycho comes after him. This leads to misogyny being a less prominent aspect of Psycho's particular psychosis, with his primary targets instead being "Alpha Male"-types like the man who ruined his life. And hey, here's Hal Jordan....

-Gen. Eiling as Reverse-Flash, Y/N? -Thawne become Sabbac, Y/N? -I think I'm gonna say Pam still has her canon powerset in addition to being the Cheetah. -Since one of the best things about Hal is how he hates being told what to do, but is most comfortable in jobs where he's in a disciplined hierarchy...Zinda recruits him to create a new version of the Blackhawks. Not sure who else is in it; I can think of a bunch of ace pilots in the DCu, but they’re all American, and the Blackhawks should be an international operation. Possibility; the same temporal shenaniganry that dropped Zinda in the modern-day also spat-out Hans Von Hammer, the Enemy Ace. -I'm adding Captain Nazi to Hal's Rogue's Gallery. Since Hal is Ambiguously Jewish, his sidekick is Inuit, and in this 'verse he's part of a team that's a legacy of an group founded to fight the Nazis, I feel like it works. Also, Hal's other villains thus far are a bisexual woman, a dwarf, and a US Air Force General, people who are naturally inclined to have beef with him and vice versa. -Abra-Kadabra being one of Bruce's villains, Y/N?

-Circe is one of Bruce’s Rogues and they have UST.

@videodromeda

[terrytheboxwithlimbs]

BLORBO GAME SHOW BLORBO GAME SHOW BLORBO GAME SHOW

something dead poets?????? n..eil? todd??????????????

stan uris??

friggen uhhhhhhhhh,,,,,,,

im gonna do it im gonna make a random guess with no background info or thoughts whatsoever ever

stanley barber (?)

biIINGGOO on all of those! You sound so unsure lmao but you guessed correctly, they are all my blorbos! ☺️

[roxyandelsewhere]

Cas supporting John Winchester’s right to shut the fuck up

Summary: John comes back from the dead for undefined reasons because this has no plot, barges into the bunker and catches Dean with Cas. He reacts like you'd expect (not depicted) but Dean is comfortable enough with who is now not to give a rat's ass about it. Cas, however, very much cares and wants John to know just how much he appreciates John’s input. [ao3]

It's around 9am and John Winchester himself barges into the bunker. The only person there is a blond young man.

"Where are Sam and Dean?", he asks. No introduction, no "hey I'm Sam and Dean's dad and I was dead but now I'm not and I was told they'd be here." Nothing. Must be urgent. Jack points in the direction of their rooms and John starts walking. No thank you, either.

First he finds Sam's room. Knocks and opens the door at the same time, and finds his youngest son in bed with a woman wearing what's clearly one of his shirts and holding a knife. Alright. Sam takes a bit to notice someone is there, and when he sees John he's obviously confused. Who wouldn't be? He's seen people come back from the dead, but what the fuck, he thinks. The woman sees the way he's looking at John and immediately points the knife at him.

"She's a hunter too?"

"I-uh-....yes. Eileen, this is my dad." Now she's confused too.

"Aren't you gonna tell her to put down the knife?"

"No."

"Mmkay. Nice to meet you Eile-"

"Shut up." They're looking only at each other, trying to figure out what could be happening. She's still pointing the knife right at him though. Sam looks at him. Asks him random questions about their childhood. He answers correctly. It's John alright. Shit. "What are you doing here?"

"Now that's no way to greet your old ma-is she gonna have that knife pointed at me the whole time?"

Eileen shrugs. "Probably, yeah." John imagines what Sam has told her about him.

"Where's Dean? I'll explain everything to you both. He's in one of those rooms, right?" Sam moves like he's about to say something but John doesn't give him a chance before walking towards the other doors. He knows he's found Dean's room when he hears vague sounds coming from behind one of the doors.

"This one?"

"Dad wa-" Sam tries while putting on pants but John is already opening the door. He looks inside and just sees bed sheets that clearly have two people underneath them. Lots of rumbling. Kissing noises. Dean giggling. "That's my boy!", he thinks. The sheets go down a bit and there's Dean, sprawled on the bed, having the time of his life. Whoever's with him is still under the sheets. Sam clears his throat from behind John, doing that arm raise and fold you do when things are awkward, and Dean gets spooked. He turns, sees John and visibly short-circuits. He freezes. And out from under the sheets pops the top of a head. It's a man, who looks where Dean is looking, squints, is silent for a few seconds, and then simply says "..........You're dead." The thoughts going through John's head are pretty much what you'd imagine he'd think. Coming back from the dead hasn't changed that, and you can see that in his face. Sam is grimacing behind him, Eileen gasps.

"Uhhh so this is Cas." Dean manages to say, thoughts a mile a minute and completely frozen at the same time.

John turns back to Sam and asks "did you know about this? Did you know he'd be here?" and he just answers "...yeah this is their room". Well okay then, John thinks. Out loud. Meanwhile, Dean and Cas are still under the covers aggressively whispering at each other. "Do you know what's happening??" "No, do you??" "How would I know?" "I quit from Heaven, Dean, I don't get the newsletter anymore. I don't know"-aggressive air quotes-"what's up."

John is still turned back to Sam. "So you're okay with this?"

"Yeah why wouldn't I be. It's Cas."

"What kind of a name is Cas??"

Cas pops out further from under the covers, a finger raised in the air towards John, assertive. "That's Castiel for you." Dean raises an eyebrow at that. A slight smile.

"Castiel......as in the angel? Parents catholic?"

"You could say so."

"Huh." John says, and realizes they're still under the covers. "For the love of God can you please get dressed?"

They start getting dressed and Cas mumbles "yes but we'll do it for ourselves". John chooses not to even register that, too much going on already. They get in their boxers and before lifting the sheets Dean looks at Eileen. "Are-are you gonna turn around?" and she makes a face of "oh shit yeah of course man sorry".

Now John is staring up and down at Dean and Cas, who are standing in front of him wearing only boxers and a t-shirt. Dean's boxers have tiny cowboys on them. Cas is wearing a Beyoncé tour t-shirt, and John is mostly staring at him. He thinks Cas is just some guy, and therefore someone he can easily intimidate. And he's shorter than John, too, so John thinks he can stare him down and he'll get the message. But he doesn't. He looks up at John with the attitude of someone who's looking down on him, and John feels it. Strange feeling.

Cas starts a whole angry speech, "I have been around since before your atoms were molecules-" but Dean puts his arm in front of him and gets him to back away going "hey hey Cas take it down a notch", but all John can see is that Dean touches him in a way that shows they're very physically comfortable with each other and with getting into each other's space and touching in general. He does not like that at all. At every little moment John is trying to glean information about what the sweet fresh hell is going on, what kind of man his son is in bed with, how serious they are, anything, and every little thing he notices confuses him more. They walk into the main room of the bunker and the blond young man is still there. He looks adult but he acts like a kid and interacts with Dean and Cas like they're his parents. More confusion on the pile. Sam and Eileen take Jack away as Sam says "we're gonna leave you guys to catch up" and while he's walking away Dean aggressively mouths "what is going on??" and Sam without stopping mouths back "I don't know!!". John scoffs and thinks to himself that he might as well ignore the weird kid guy, that can be left for later. So now it's just him, who still hasn't explained how or why he's suddenly there, and Dean and Cas. Just the three of them in that huge room. Dean is doing those arm movements and random faces you do when everything is silent and you don't know where to look, just where you don't want to look. John is standing still with the posture of a dad waiting for his kid to admit he broke the vase with the football, except angrily homophobic. Coming back from the dead definitely did not change him.

"So Cas..." he does a mocking voice for his name, "how did you and my son meet?"

"Well I gripped him tight and raised him from perdition", Cas says matter-of-factly, and Dean puts his face in his hands. John gives a look of someone who assumes that's a weird euphemism, which Cas does not catch. Dean looks at him with a face that says "really?" and Cas understands what happened, so he clarifies. "I raised him out of hell after he died." That does not help make things clearer. Dean is now staring intensely at the ground, arms crossed. He says "Cas is an angel" and looks up at John, waiting for a reaction. John obviously has none. Angels walking around is new information to him. He thinks they're joking but quickly realizes they aren't. Still no idea how to react. After some buffering, he processes the fact that his son has died, gone to hell, was saved from hell by an angel, and now is in a relationship with that angel.

"But...you're an angel. Can angels really......you know....." He makes weird gestures neither Cas nor Dean understand but they understand what he's trying to say and wish they could unsee it. They answer in unison, Cas with a "Yes." of someone who doesn't understand the confusion, Dean with a "Yeah" accompanied by a smirk. John's mind is half calling homophobic slurs at Dean, half gobsmacked by the fact that 1. angels are real, 2. they roam the earth, and 3. his son is sleeping with one of them. Suddenly a third half appears.

"Wait, you died and came back to life?"

"Yeah dad like 7 times already, and from the looks of it so have you so get talking."

But John is still hung up on Dean and Cas, and about as accepting as you'd expect. That hurts Dean, but it hurts him in a way that's more "I knew this would have happened if he knew but I wasn't prepared for it to ever actually happen so this caught me off guard but I have moved past being affected by his opinion of me but this is bringing back some bad memories". He looks at Cas and Cas understands what he's feeling. That specifically. Because of course he does. Cas brushes his hand against Dean's arm as a small comforting gesture and then walks up to John until he's really close to him.

"You're going to shut up now, and you're going to listen to me." John is still angrily ranting. Cas is unbothered and raises his voice slightly. "I said you're going to shut up now, and listen. I know what you're like. I know what you've done and what you've said. What you did to Dean. And I've read your journal. I know what you thought you were doing." He takes one more step ahead. Practically bumping noses with John at this point, who isn't used to being talked to like this. Dean is transfixed. Cas continues. "You are a small, pathetic little man. Evil, but pathetic evil. And you certainly don't scare me. So you're going to shut up, and tell us what you're doing here. Now."

John gets the message. For the rest of his time among the living (not long), he makes no criticism directed at Dean. He doesn't say anything supportive either, but Dean wouldn't want his support either. He sticks to what's necessary, no more words than that. Turns out what shuts up a man who thrives on being scary is finding someone who can scare him. And Eileen's knife whenever it seems like he's gonna be an asshole out loud again.

The next time Dean and Cas are alone after this moment is when they get into their room that night. They walk across the threshold in silence and Dean closes the door behind him and immediately grabs Cas's face and kisses him. "I love you", he says. Ten minutes later he's giggling under the sheets again.

[distantsuns-archive]

RULES: you can only say “guilty” or “innocent”. you are not allowed to explain anything unless someone messages you or asks you. repost, don’t reblog !  

TAGGED BY: @astralglam​ thank u! also i don’t give a single rat’s ass i am explaining all of these because i love explaining random shit about james

TAGGING : @redheid @rosedha @kittenstm @dottiesxdreams @erstwhles​ idk anyone else if u want!

Asked  someone  to  marry  you?  /  innocent; lorcan proposed to him Kissed  one  of  your  friends?  /  guilty lol. james will literally make out with people and then the next day never talk about it ever again

Danced  on  a  table  in  a  bar / tavern?  /  guilty Ever  told  a  lie?  /  guilty Had  feelings  for  someone you  can’t  have?  / oof. yeah, guilty Ever  kissed  someone  of  the same  sex?  /  guilty. james b like “move i’m gay” Kissed  a  picture?  /   guilty. it was probably a picture of agnetha from abba lol Slept  until  5pm?  /   guilty. a regular occurrence when he’s on tour lmfao Fallen  asleep  at  work / school?  /    guilty Held  a  snake?   /   guilty (there’s a pic of n/eil at the san diego zoo holding a snake and im like yeah that’s james) Been  suspended  from  school?  /   innocent but only because he was home schooled technically but boy did he get in trouble a lot lol. Worked  at  a  fast  food  chain/restaurant?   /   innocent. although the idea of teenage james at macca’s is actually hilarious to me Stolen  something?   /    guilty. he used to steal food often when he was broke and starving and he kinda feels bad about it but he donates a lot to food banks in glasgow and stuff now that he’s successful Been  fired  from  a  job?   /   guilty. told his manager at tesco to go fuck himself and walked off the job and rent was due the next day hahahahaha this dumbass Done  something  you  regret?  /    guilty. duh Laughed  until  something  you  were  drinking  came  out  of  your  nose?  /   guilty Caught  a  snowflake  on  your  tongue?   /  guilty Kissed  in  the  rain?  /   guilty Sat  on  a  rooftop?    /  guilty. fell off a rooftop? also guilty. Kissed  someone  you  shouldn’t have?   /   guilty. lol oh boy Sang  in  the  shower?   /   guilty. he’s always constantly singing or humming something and it’s cute for like the first 2 days then you want to kill him Been  pushed  into  a  pool with  all  your  clothes  on?  /   guilty cos he was being a dick. also they realized he was too drunk to stand up and someone had to jump in and fish him out because otherwise he would’ve drowned. lol Shaved  your  head?    /    innocent. although man it really seems like something he’d do mid-breakdown lmao Slept  naked?   /    innocent. that makes him feel too vulnerable and exposed and there’s also some #trauma involved there so no. Made  a  boyfriend/girlfriend cry?   /  guilty as HELL lmao Shot  a  gun?    /   innocent Still  loved  someone  you  shouldn’t?   /   guilty. oof Have/had  a  tattoo?    /    innocent. but only because he’s terrified of needles lol. Liked  someone,  but  will  never  tell  who?    /   as a teenager yeah? so i guess guilty. Been  too  honest?   /    guilty. yeah Ruined  a  surprise?   /   guilty. ruined his son’s surprise birthday party by being high off his ass and doing coke in the kitchen. ay yi yi Been  told  that  you’re  beautiful  by  someone  who  totally  meant  what  they  said?   /   guilty i guess? Stalked  someone?    /    innocent. i guess he thought of following his first crush to los angeles but that was more of like a 17-year-old’s wishful thinking Thought  about  murder?    /    guilty. oh if he could get his hands on the CEO of capitol records........ he would go to jail for a million years and still be happy about it Still  have  communication  w/  your  ex?   /   innocent. doesn’t talk to his ex-girlfriends from before he met lorcan. after lorcan divorces him james tries desperately to get into contact with him and lorcan is just like. not having it. How  about  mass  murder?    /    innocent. unless you count an entire crew of incompetent roadies. Cheated  on  someone?    /   guilty. ay yi yi Gotten so  angry  that  you  cried?    /   guilty lmaoooo literally the king of temper tantrums please Tried  to  stay  away  from  someone  for  their  own  good?    /    guilty. yeah his son Thoughts  about  suicide?    /    guilty Had  a  girlfriend/boyfriend?    /   guilty Gotten  totally  drunk  during  a  holiday?  /   guilty lmao why during a holiday he needs no excuse to get drunk

[cartoonfangirl1218]

3 times Bette was afraid to touch Barry and the one time she wasn’t

Obvious AU where Bette is still alive. I felt that there was some potential with her so here it is.

Their was a loud crash bang, but Bette didn't even look up. Probably another brawl between the new recruits. No one wanted to use the tazer less they accidentally shock themselves when she tried to head butt them.

It had been days since she been in the normal world, and she was slowly accepting this was what her life was going to be like until she died or until she gave in.

She had been dead for precisely a day before returning back to life. According to Eiling, she had been shot and blown up. But with the help of a man named Savage, they connected to a group called the Time Masters and hired the Pilgrim.

The Pilgrim was a woman able to stop time, another meta-human of some sort, and she went to the split second after Flash had run off and she blew up. Retrieved her body and with some extensive bomb-detonations, DNA analysts, and other stuff that Eiling didn't comprehend well enough to explain to her, she was alive.

Bette couldn't really wrap her mind around the whole Time Masters thing, and Savage or the Pilgrim but she chose not to dwell on it. After all she could make explosives with everything she touched who was she to judge.

The one thing Eiling made sure to keep were her powers. Unpredictable as ever. She had been too dazed and confused to really fight back when they brought her into the room.

The room was large, probably ten feet wide, ten feet in length. All white with padded grey walls and a large see-through window spanning the front next to the door.

They put her in the middle of the room. Strapped her to two chains hanging from ceiling into a elevated T or crucification-position. It prevented her from being able to move her hands around to touch the chains on her wrists or touch anyone/thing else.

She was hanging with no firm grip on the ground and she teetered on the toes of her boots. Preventing her from getting enough leverage to make a proper kick or at least that would make an impact.

She stayed in this position for hours on end, her back straining and arms aching from being stretched as her body longed to touch the ground. They wouldn't even let her eat with her hands, they spoon-fed her and gave her water. She was only unstrapped to go to the bathroom.

Which was a toilet and sink located at the upper right corner of the room. She was thankful that no perved had decided to look but it was still degrading. Treated like a wild animal, and going without the privacy of a stall.

Eiling was determined as ever to make her into a weapon, and he hadn't let up his threat that he would force her. Every day she would be tazered, hit, kicked, and water boarded.

This wasn't new for her, she had dealt with this while she had been serving on the Gulf Cost. Interrogation techniques and pain and she had become immune to most of them. She took comfort with the fact that they wanted her alive to be their living weapon so as she gasped and panicked for breath as the water bag placed over her head, suffocating her. She remembered they wouldn't go that far.

Although sometimes she wanted to give in, such as the nights they tried the sleep deprivation tactic, brights lights, loud noises, cold water splashed over her every time she was about to nod off. What would happen if she said yes?

Maybe they would finally unstrapped her? Maybe they would let her go into a regular room and sleep for once and maybe get a home and call me and special missions? Finally know what the date is?

Those thoughts were quickly pushed out when she reminded herself that as a living weapon, they wouldn't see her as a person.

Only a fighting machine. They wouldn't let her go back to her old life nor help her control her powers. It wasn't worth losing her humanity and independence to fight enemies if she didn't get a say in it.

She had joined the army to fight for the American way, but fighting for the government. She had a feeling fighting solely for the government might be killing more than terrorists but more anyone who tried to fight against it's precious leaders. Her stubbornness kicked in and she used all her will and tactics she learned at training to refuse.

"One thing different in this scenario," Bette snorted to herself, "There's no army to come looking for me. No one even knows I'm alive."

The crash sounded again, along with Eiling shouting and Bette curiously looked up.

She saw a red blur rush through the facility and Bette gasped. The familiar red blur, who had tried to help her all those days, possibly months ago.

He had honestly tried to help her with her powers, and one of the only ones who didn't look at her with absolute fear when he found out about her powers.

Flash looked through the window at her. He knocked Eiling's head against the glass and kicked open the door.

"Flash" she whispered, horsely. She jingled the chains uselessly and cringed as her torso recoiled in pain.

"Bette you're alive!?" Flash asked incredulous.

"Clearly," Bette snapped, Flash unsnapped the chain and she fell to the ground.

"Let me help.." Flash reached for her hand.

"Don't touch me," she hissed, scorching away from him, "I can handle myself."

She gripped her hands tightly, making sure not touch the floor, and pulled herself up by her elbows. Then promptly felt a searing pain in her ribs and buckled to the floor.

"Bette, we need you to get you out of here. You can't walk." Flash insisted as she crawled on her elbows and knees to the door.

"I don't have gloves on. I don't want to hurt you." Bette hissed.

"I can handle this, come on" he tried to reached under arm and attempted to get her to standing position but she kept squirming out of his grasp.

"Trust me." The speedster said with urgency. Bette looked at him, and relaxed her muscles. If anyone would get her out of this. He would.

She offered him her wrist. He took it and took her to the outside world in a woosh of air.

She found out it was 2016, she had spent two years in that place and has sustained from 7 cracked ribs, a severe concussion, a slight fear of water, broken ankle and dislocated knee cap.

There had been other people kept captive at the place, but she had been the only one to stick around with Team Flash.

Caitlin offered her a new set of gloves and although she couldn't participate in missions until she was healed, she helped out the Labs with random jobs and surveillance.

It had been quite dull, but once she was fully healed from her injuries, Cisco suggested as a professional trained solider, that she could teach them to fight better.

She had been training them but Caitlin and Cisco soon ducked out after the first session, claiming that their expertise lied behind the computer screen and they rather be able to sit on their chairs without sore butts.

Barry, she learned his name was, continue to train with her since he was the one doing most of the fighting. She had to admit, despite some posture and technique problems since he depended on his speed, but he had the basic skills down and the superspeed reflexes helped him a lot.

"Okay Bette, stop I'm woah" he ducked her roundhouse kick "I'm done."

"It's only been 20 minutes," Bette protested, taking another head-butt at him. It felt so good to be exercising again.

"Can you let it up a little?" Barry asked.

"Do you think Zoom would let it up a little?" She elbowed him in the shoulder.

"Fine," He panted, and aimed another upper cut at her. It would have been an easy block, but she hesitated and he sent flat on the ground.

"What happened there, bombshell?" Barry asked as she got up. She smirked, Cisco had started to nickname her Bombshell after she explained that one of her best talents in the army was as a bomb detonator.

"Nothing. I mean.. I would have blocked it, but you know...hands. I'm so used to touching myself." She cringed, "Sorry that sounded so wrong."

"Well you have your gloves now. So come on throw something at me. Punch.” "I'm okay, really." Bette wiped her pants.

"Oh come on punch me. You've got to get use to touching things again, so try to hit me." Barry insisted.

"It's fine, I'll stick to kicking."

"Bette," Barry whined, exaggeratedly "Punch me. It's not hard. I won't even defend myself. See" he clasped his hands behind his back.

"Even more of a reason not to," Bette protested with the image of his head exploding into a thousand little pieces.

"But I'm use to it. It'll be fine. People punched me lots of times" He grabbed her wrist, and attempted to squash it against his face.

"Then have them do it. I'm not going to," She pulled her hands back. "You can't fight without punching people" Barry chided, shoving her backwards.

"Really? Because I was beating your ass two seconds ago." Bette snorted, dogging another swipe at her. She tried to flip his legs with her own when he grabbed hers midway and threw her over.

"Oh look who's beating your ass now," Barry taunted, as she tried to up kick him again, once more with the same results and again.

"Damn Bette, keep fighting like this and we'll have your butt imprint on the floor." Bette growled in frustration.

He kept knocking her over and circling around her with his damn superspeed until she finally snapped and sent a smooth undercut to his jaw.

He fell to the floor with a thud, Bette bend down to his side,

"Oh my god, Barry I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it so hard!"

"You did it" he cheered with such a happy grin that Bette had to laugh "Great job," He reached for a high five.

"'Another time" Bette glanced wearily at his hand and cracked her knuckles -

Eight weeks later, Barry had taken to what he called Operation Touchy and Bette sincerely wished he would choose a new name.

Ever since the punching incident he felt that she had to get acquainted with physical contact again and every week, after training he would "introduce" her to a new sense of touch. After punching, it had been slapping, after that it had been handshakes. It was sort of ridiculous and unneeded if you asked her but he kept trying.

There was another factor too.

The more time she spent with him, the more she came to admire him. She didn't want to admit it, but she was starting to get a small crush. At first she had tried to convince herself it was a misplaced feeling and that she only was grateful for helping her, no love whatsoever.

Besides he was dating Patti, she was not that kind of girl to ruin someone's relationship. He would be better off with Patti, she was as normal and awkward as he was. They were perfect together.

But then they started to get to know each other. That was one way not to get over someone. He started to tell her about his mother and how he had come to live with the Wests. He talked about his bio-engineer dreams, and school and how he used to get bullied when he was younger.

He also introduced her to some of his favorite shows, and after he found out she had no idea who Dan and Phil where they spent the entire afternoon looking up videos. He would send an occasional but very energetic email, saying "THEY POSTED A NEW ONE? IT'S HILARIOUS GO LOOK? LOL FUNNY!"

She admired his optimism very much, she never met anyone so happy, and it brightened her day to hear him crack a joke in midst pressure. One time he had sent a Dubsmash of him dancing to Gangam Style/Harlem Shake/Whip n Nae Nae and she almost collapsed on the floor, laughing.

She had never seen anything like a grown male attempting whip Gangam style then do the worm and trip over a bowl of popcorn.

Today he "introduced" her to poking. Which she was pretty sure just an excuse for him to annoy her.

Afterwards he invited her to watch Mean Girls at the Lab because Patti was working a night shift.

"Isn't this a chick flick?" Bette asked as he placed a bowl of popcorn on the desktop.

"Well, yeah but it's written by Tina Fey!" She looked at him blankly "And stars Lindsey Lohan" he added like those two names would be an obvious answer to why a PG-13 move from the early 200s would be so awesome.

"Watch and you'll understand," He sat on the rolling chair beside her and accidentally knocked his knee against hers. An act that shouldn't have been so electrifying for her but it was. She blushed and grabbed a handful of popcorn.

Bette felt a little disappointed that he didn't seem to have noticed their knees touching but she hissed at herself, "Patti Patti Patti Patti.” "What was that?" He asked her.

"Nothing" Bette chirped, and blushed again.

Eventually she fell asleep at some part about a Halloween party and she thrashed restlessly. She had been having nightmares ever since she got her powers, usually world-about-to-end-all-thanks-to-her-types but sometimes she had general ones of fallen friends as their body parts were sent flying fifty feet in the air or when they were beheaded and militated by the Taliban.

Currently it was a flashback to being water boarded, over but this time Eiling wasn't letting up. She felt the burn of his bullet going into her chest.

"Wake up!" A disembodied voice called and she woke up. Barry was holding her by the shoulders and shaking her awake. "Are you okay? You were about to fall off your chair."

"Uh yeah, a nightmare. Regular PTSD stuff, ignore me." Bette waved him off and tried to settle herself back into a comfortable position.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked.

"No. I'd rather not, I, Eiling that..um. Death hurts nothing much you can say about that.”

"Right, I get it" Barry nodded sagely. He reached his arms around her and she stiffened, unsure what to do.

"Now this is called hugging" Barry said, soothingly, stroking her hair. She felt her heart flutter a bit as his warm chest rested against hers, with his soft even breathing.

Slowly she put her hands around his back and rested her chin in the crook of his neck. He was so warm and so soft.

But like all things it had to end, and Bette wanted to slow the rapid flutterings in her stomach. "It meant nothing, just friend hugging a friend. He has a lovely girlfriend of his own who deserves him" she thought to herself.

But "I think I like hugging the best so far" she added shyly Barry grinned, "Me too, it's a lot less painful than slapping." ————

She had been about to leave S.T.A.R. Labs after Barry had returned from saving the subway when she spotted him, sitting melancholy on the patient table.

"Hey Barry, are you okay?" She asked him softly He sat silent.

"Did someone die? Do you want to talk about it?" She asked. "Patti," he sighed deeply.

It had been a month since Patti broke up with him, but he still had hurt feelings. She couldn't blame him, he had been over the moon with her but all the secret keeping and lies took a toll. Despite her feelings she hadn't want them to break up because of it. She actually encouraged him to tell her but it all came too late.

"Sometimes I feel like, I won't be enough for anyone. I'm too secretive. My intelligence scares them off. I'm too much like one of the girls. I've always been friend-zoned." Bette frowned, he must not only be talking about Patti,Iris was in this too.

"And then, I always make such lame excuses and jokes." This was more than the break-up, this was his whole self-esteem in the balance.

"Every time I try to find someone, I do but I end up losing them or endangering all the rest of the female population finds me utterly disgusting!"

Bette couldn't stand to see him like this. He resembled a symbol of hope and life to almost everyone in Central City, and although he couldn't save everyone he tried. He cared and he should know this.

"Barry, I want you to listen to me. Although it feels like it. You can't hold all the faults of the relationship on your shoulders. It's a relationship, a bond between TWO people. So for every mistake you made she made one too, it's not entirely one. Furthermore you're an amazing person Barry Allen.

You have more sense of fairness and justice in you than most people have in their pinkie. You want a fair trial, and you always put 110% in what you do. Believe me, people appreciate that. And in terms of people you care about. Barry you are the sweetest being in the universe. You cheer people up, you reason and sympathize with their troubles. What woman wouldn't love that about you. Know what else they would love about you, let's review" she started counting off her fingers.

"Singing voice is angelic, body 12 out of a scale of ten, your intelligence is outstanding and there is nothing cuter than when you start talking about what you love, you put your friends before your self and that's always very admirable, and most importantly you never stop being you. Which is what every girl looks for. That's true honesty."

Barry looked at her, mouth agape. "You're talking about me?" "Of course I am.” And for once, Bette didn't think about her hands or touching or anything else in the world. She only saw him and all the traits she had described. The incredibly smart, geeky man who saved the world on a daily basis. The man who had helped her in the darkest time and always looked at her with a smile.

She pulled his head closer to hers, gently caressing his cheek as she stared into his piercing brown eyes, and kissed him.

She pulled back, looking at his face for his reaction. "Thanks for what you said" Barry said, looking away.

Bette felt her heart dropped down to the floor, he didn't feel the same way, this was so embarrassing. Even if she had been gone for two years she doubted that people suddenly kissed to cheer friends up. She moved to leave.

"Now may introduce you to French kissing?" he asked. Bette turned back to him, and saw his eyes shining. "Yes" She pulled him closer, and fell into a tight, comforting embrace.

[haechan-haedamn]

I. Timid - Taeil

‘The Duality of Man’ - A Rupi Kaur Collab With @hcechans

THE LIST

“I am timid

cause falling into you

means falling out of him

and I had not prepared for that”

- forward, rupi kaur

Characters: Taeil, Johnny, Reader

Pairing: Taeil/Reader

Genre: Sad but Okay (?? idk)

Word Count: 2.4K

Warnings: Past Abusive Relationship

Cornerstore sky lights and the buzz of a broken a/c pulsed against your eyes like a miraculous omen from above. You left him three weeks ago, but he held on like melted summer gum to the sole of your shoe, his fingertips violent but passive along the bruises of your ribs. Your sweater still smelled like alcohol, but you could barely tell, the blood crusting against the rims of your nostrils blocking out the scent like curtains drawn tight. It had been three hours since you had last seen him, his guts creating paisley wallpaper against your hotel’s structure, the iridescent puke of his bourbon pastime melting into the cracks of your tiled floors.

You were hoping he would rot.

It took twenty minutes to drive to the police station, forty-five to file a report, fifty-six to wipe the tears from your eyes, ten for the blood on your lips to dry, thirty to tell your mother what you had done, nineteen to drive here. 

It was empty inside, humid with late summer memory and exhaustion, your lonesomeness only met by a sleeping worker and isles of sodium-filled packages. You wondered around blindly, one eye still swelling shut, your mind vaguely reminding you to buy bandages as you ran your fingers across the soda-machine dispensers.

You needed to wash the red off your hands, wash the bruises off your palms that still outlined your grip.

The bathroom mirror was secured to a wall mottled by inked phone numbers and small hearts, the silver shard of reflection covered in a film of something sticky. You stared at yourself, at the sweater that hung off your shoulders so that it could showcase the purple blemish that coated over your collarbones like a slather of sugar-flecked syrup. Your eyes traced the swell of your stained lips, the cut across your nose- the way your eyelashes disappeared against the dark gray bruise clouding your right eye. You looked like hell.

You left the bathroom after scrubbing at your hands for seven minutes, finally succumbing to the fact that your nail beds would stay crimson and the water would still sting no matter how hot it got. The store still looked the same, the a/c still hummed like an army of wasps, the light still glared at you like a disappointed relative asking the same questions over and over again: “You always have random bruises nowadays, when did you get so clumsy?” “When are you planning on getting married?” “Kids?” “Don’t be so rude to him, honey, you’re lucky to have him. Who else would want you?”- you never could give them the right answer.

The register was enveloped by a man’s arms, the pale coloring developing the intensity of his veins like indigo rivers against a desert. You set down the contents of your hands, leaving a mess of a half-opened box of band-aids, a large diet coke, and a package of berry starbursts against the glass countertop. You played with the edge of a lottery ticket as you whistled loudly, waiting for the man to wake up and price your purchase. You weren’t in a rush- the opposite, really- but your eyes were starting to drift closed.

A masked groan floated to you, announcing the timid stretch of arms from the clerk, his messy head rising and blinking away the stress of uncomfortable sleep. He was squinting at you, the deep richness of his eyes pooling with the liquid in his waterlines, a hand scratching through his wavy hair- mussing it more than it already was. The collar of his shirt was crooked, half-tucked under the mesh vest of his uniform and showcasing his name tag. The rectangle of plastic was pinned to his chest, a third of it covered by the remnants of a circular sticker (whatever had been printed on it had long-since faded away). You glanced over his name without much thought, catching the tail-end of a bolded –eil and not much else.

Now awake he realized the broken state of your existence, his eyes now swimming in the alertness of chilled water on a spring night, his posture rigid as he froze.

“You can ask,” you told him, but part of you wished he wouldn’t.

You pushed your items closer to him and he picked up the first thing, ringing it into the cash register as he casted glance after glance towards the blood on your nose. You scrubbed some of it away, looking at the back of your hand, distracted by the way the red flakes looked like stars against the galaxy of bruises on your wrist.

A loud beep and the scratching noise of the register pulled your eyes back to his. “I don’t know if I should,” he told you, taking the waded cash from your shaking hands.

“Neither do I.”

He nodded, turning around a picking up a package of Virginia Slims and setting them in front of you. “Do you smoke?” he asked, adding a small, silver lighter on top of the box.

“I haven’t before today,” you answered honestly, “but right now I don’t think I would mind it.”

He nodded, adding the two items to your purchases without scanning them, ripping your receipt from the dispenser and walking around the counter with your plastic bag in hand. He didn’t say much, just a quiet murmur of ‘follow me’ as he exited through the back of the convenience store. You were too tired to argue, your feet following the path of his movements without thought, your hands fisted into the pockets of your jeans.

You stood with him now, gazing out into the sporadic traffic as it trickled along, red lights appearing and disappearing like your childhood demons- like the blood that matted against your lips. You could still hear the buzz of the a/c in your ears like fog, a promise that you were still alive in the early August morning with your hair sticking to the back of your neck, your mascara melting under the weight of your tears and the warmth of the static lights that lit the gas pumps. You burnt your fingertips three times before the man lit your cigarette for you, his hands cradling yours to retrieve the shiny lighter.

You didn’t like the taste of the smoke as you took your third drag, then your fourth, but you could feel your nerve endings start to repair themselves as you relaxed. You could feel yourself start to breathe again, through the polluted cloud of gray mist that made your eyes water and your cheeks flush. You told him you didn’t like how it tasted, not looking to see the pity in his eyes.

The feeling of poor, pitiful you was already manifested in the pit of your stomach like a virus, its legs hooking deep into your appendix with envy.

“I don’t like it either,” he said, blowing out another puff and watching it disappear into a glass-covered advertisements that were plastered inside the store’s windows..

You sat down on the curb, and rested your head on your knees, allowing your eyes to close as the volatile bud hung limply between your lips. The embers cascaded into the pavement and over your legs, leaving no trace but the thin taste of weariness in your mouth and the sting on your ankles. “Why do you smoke, then?” you asked, talking around the slim.

“I don’t.”

You flipped your head around so that you were facing him, your crown still resting on your knees, your hair against the back of your hands. “Then I must be hallucinating from shock or something,” you muttered, “because it sure looks like you’re smoking.”

“Well,” he said, dragging from the orange wrapped stick again, his free hand wiping against his jean-covered leg, “I don’t usually smoke.”

“Then why are you smoking, now?”

He shrugged, a limp piece of dark honeyed-hair blocking his right eye.

“People come into this gas station a lot,” he said, rolling the cigarette between his fingertips, “and those people sometimes look like you- like they have the weight of six worlds on their shoulders- and they ask for a pack of Marlboros or Virginia Slims and they come out here and they smoke a couple. Then, they look back through that window and they wave at me before they leave.”

“That’s a lovely story with absolutely no point.”

“Patience,” he chided, turning to look at you, his head closer than you remmebered, “When they wave and get back in their cars I notice something- their hands always shake less after they leave.”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “That’s called a nicotine addiction, not some magic voodoo trick that makes the world turn better.”

“Maybe,” he pointed at your hands, “but you aren’t shaking anymore.”

You curled your hands into tight fists, pressing them into the denim that covered your calves.

“You seem too philosophical to work a dead shift at some random interstate gas-station,” you snarked, letting your cigarette bud fall from between your lips and onto the ground to flicker its gold like a beating heartbeat. The flame breathed less as the breeze blew, its death seconds away like a wish. 

You grounded your heel over it, kicking away the ashes with your toe.

He chuckled slightly, making you open your eyes to see the end of his grin, the pink fullness of his mouth stretching like bubble gum. It faded quickly, just like the taste of bubble gum.

“I think you have to be a little philosophical to wait around alone, at three a.m., in a random interstate gas-station,” he commented, dropping his own cigarette on the ground and letting it die out on its own terms, the yellow fading to red fading to black. His feet stayed where they were, stretched out alongside you.

“Most philosophers have a god complex,” you said, “so I’m not sure if you want to brag.”

“I’m not bragging,” he snickered, “I’m just stating the obvious truth.”

“Sounds like something someone with a god complex would say.”

You left him at the end of July, watching his begs and pleas slip under the front door like a flash flood of insincerity. Your bag was hurting your hand from the weight of it, from how hard you gripped it- it had your life in it- two books about the Cold War, a tube of bright red lipstick, a couple sets of clothes, four hundred dollars and a pair of flip flops.

The smash of a glass bottle against a wall celebrated your departure, your car stuttering to life and your foot already pressing on the gas pedal. Your car smelt like poker chips and Jack Daniels.

It took him two weeks to find you. It took three hours to break down the door to your hotel room, his hand fisted in your hair as he pulled you to the bathroom and yelled at you. You barely heard what he said; too busy relishing in the numbness of your scalp as he pushed your face into the molded tile of the hotel floors. He left an hour later once his voice had gone hoarse and his hand got tired of holding you done- he was used to a response, used to hearing your beg for help at the dominance of his brutality. You were done giving him what he wanted.

Four days later he came back and presented you with an encore of callous vengeance, his hand on your hair again, but your face met the moth balls the molted in the hotel carpet this time. He yelled about something else this time, the words ‘slut’ and ‘cheater’ a distant memory to your clouded fear. He left again, one hour later- again. You could taste metal in your mouth, wonder about how hard you bit your tongue this time.

Three days later he came around again, finding you incompliant and risky, your gaze firm and sober. He had started yelling as he came in the door, parading around like a testosterone filled gorilla, his fist in the furniture like he was playing a mini-game. You watched him, remembering the way he used to gently say your name. He spat in your face.

His hand rose to find the back of your head, to find itself back in the bushel of hair to latch there and force you under his will, again. You told him ‘no’. He ignore you until your hand stung across his cheek like hellfire, whipping a laceration against the stubble on his chin as you remembered his laughter and the way he used to stroke your hair. He growled at you, possessed by possessing you, his hands shoving against your shoulders and forcing your back to the wall- pining you up like a picture frame of past memories where you used to eat lunch in a park during the weekends. He broke that picture frame four months ago.

He broke you two years ago.

He tried to glue your wrists to the wall like you tried to glue your relationship back together that night he drank too much whiskey and came back with a girl’s number on his chest in red ink. You screamed and spat, kicked your legs into his stomach like a child throwing a tantrum because that was just it- you were done. He shuddered back, not used to a frontal attack of vicious animosity. He didn’t recognize you- this girl with claws instead of pretty pink nails, with bared teeth and anger polluting her fear, her hands striking at him like a cobra that enjoyed playing predator. You hadn’t recognized yourself since the first night he left a bruise on your arm.

You left him face first in the tan sheets of your hotel bed, letting the bed bugs crawl into his ear canal like a silent omen of death- wishing he would sleep well. You left him and you left the old shell of yourself behind, ridding yourself of his touch as he struggled to breathe into the sweater you had left on your bed.

You drove to the police department. You called your mother. You drove to a gas station at two in the morning and smoked a pack of cigarettes with a boy named Taeil. He was the first person to meet the new you.

You still tell him that every night before you fall asleep, wrapped in the comfort of his arms as he breathed deeply- reminding you that you were alive still, that life doesn’t end when you always think it will.

The fear was present still, a dull drum that still haunted you, but it was never going to go away. You never though you would find someone again, be able to trust someone again when you stilled flinched when offered a handshake, but you hadn’t planned on smoking a Virginia Slim in August next to a boy who was patient, who didn’t ask you questions you couldn’t answer.

Falling into Taeil was easier than it should have been, but when you had been on the edge of a cliff for so long you decided jumping was the only option you had left.

FIN.

[your-husband-brother-yu]

i am into debut or die, deeply

the novel is what i was reading throughout this week instead of my readings, which sre not a lot but hey

[lazyrainymysoul]

that genshin tcg makes me miss my zenonzard, shadowverse, and runeterra days

[alex-mahone-archive]

the flash

what’s that

Favorite character: eobard thawne

Least Favorite character: general eiling

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): original harrison wells/tess, iris/barry, cisco/lisa, ??? life would be easier if i shipped things

Character I find most attractive: e2!harrison wells or cavanagh!eobard......or leonard snart oops how did i forget

Character I would marry: e2!harrison

Character I would be best friends with: caitlin or cisco

A random thought: when are the rogues happening

An unpopular opinion: s1 is the best season? is this unpopular? i don’t know

My canon OTP: original!harrison/tess (and iris/barry)

Non-canon OTP: i guess cisco/lisa isn’t canon?

Most badass character: iris prob

Pairing I am not a fan of: uhhh caitlin/”””””””””””jay””””””””””” was bad but i don’t think anyone truly shipped it, at least not after the Reveal

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): i feel like the writers have not been good to caitlin bc most of her plots do boil down to Love Interests

Favourite friendship: caitlin/cisco/barry

[coldtomyflash]

Things I would Do Different if I Re-Wrote AATJS

This is random but while getting job apps done this week I’ve been rereading AATJS (because why not - I’ve never actually read it after it was done) and thinking back on conversations I’ve had about it, reading comments on it, and I’ve come to a few conclusions.

So eh, dumping my thoughts here for any interested parties :)

(major spoilers for the end of the fic under the cut!)

Big Changes

There’s only a few broad / large scale changes I would make, I think, and they all feed into one another.

There’s some stuff with how the climax occurs that isn’t well foreshadowed within the fic. Or if it’s foreshadowed, the narrative still doesn’t build up to it properly.

A main thing I would change would be to introduce the notion of metagenes much sooner and talk about it as something Caitlin is researching actively. Bring it up early in the fic and leave it there. When Barry is searching for metas to warn about the military, maybe have them discuss using a search based on genetics but toss it aside as too much of a violation of privacy and too danger to have a list like that. Have him actually get to interact with the meta he goes searching for at the circus (when he and Len run into James Jesse in the fic) to make the theme of metas more prominent throughout. In this way, I’d also introduce the military element a little sooner / stronger, and Dr. Eilias.

Feeding into that, I have serious changes I would make to the Hartley / James storyline. Right now, it’s uncomfortable to me. I did my damn best not to make it abuse-apologist after I wrote James’ behavior as totally deplorable, but at the end of the day, the narrative still advocates: “if you think they’ve changed, take them back”. It’s not a narrative I want to advocate, regardless of how sincere James’s changes are in the fic. And there are reasons I wrote that storyline the way I did that deal with people in my life, but honestly, it’s bullshit and I kind of hate how it fell out.

What I’d do instead is make Hartley’s Soulmate someone else. Some abusive asshole who had serious internalized homophobia and never really dealt with it. And I’d have Hartley as having left him, except they’d stay separated. I would use Hartley both as a cautionary tale (”soulmates don’t always end up together”) but also give him a better ending with a more beautiful theme to it: he’d end up with James anyway, except James would be Unmarked. He’d be someone else that Hartley falls in love with, maybe someone from the circus or else an additional Rogue struggling to come to terms with his identity as he starts to fall for Hartley from the sidelines while Hartley’s busy flirting with Len. Maybe I’d make him a meta (and not use James Jesse, idk) to fit with that theme. But he wouldn’t be Hartley’s Soulmate, and the lesson would be: “you can fall in love with someone else and never see your Soulmate again and still be happy and fulfilled.” Because honestly, that to me is a much more powerful storyline.

This would also allow me to introduce the notions of NAB Blockers and Breaking Bonds much sooner and in a much bigger way. Hartley would be contemplating Breaking his Bond with his Soulmate, but he hasn’t been able to go through with it yet. Sometime in the middle of the fic’s narrative, or at least after things with him and Len shake out and after he becomes a Rogue, Hartley would Break his Bond. Then we would know it’s possible and would learn about Dr. Elias’s research here.

(For the record, all of this would up the “consequences” element for Barry and Len sorting their shit out, though that’s not the sole reason for doing it, of course).

Speaking of Barry and Len, there’s a few things I would change there. For one, I would make it clearer up front some of the extra stuff Barry is dealing with which only gets revealed later in the fic. I might drop the “there’s an alternate future / timeline where he married Iris, a la season 1 newspaper″ storyline altogether because it’s... bumpy. But I’d acknowledge that he’s still getting over his love for Iris and watching her and Eddie be together and have that life and have a kid is tough on him. I’d acknowledge up front and quick that it’s only been about a month since Len’s betrayal at Ferris Air, and that’s a huge part of why Barry is struggling to trust Len and worried at the outset. I’d make it clearer that he’s still re-grieving his mother and conflicted over how things shook out with Eobard and laboring to get his life in order.

And I’d make it clear very quickly that Barry is struggling to protect everyone. I think I would use Joe a lot more in the fic for this (a lot more in the first half in general). Have scenes after Joe’s leg got injured where Barry is wracked with guilt over how things went at the gala. Show more of Barry’s fear that he can’t protect Len from the rest of the shit in his life, including maybe a nightmare about Joe shooting Len (because if the cold field hadn’t been in place, well, that pretty much almost happened). Just... give more evidence of Barry’s motives and not play up the self-deception and repression stuff so much, or else make better use of the perspectives of those around him to showcase his conflict if he himself isn’t understanding what’s going on in his own head.

Minor Changes

Some people won’t think this is a minor change, but I think it ultimately is: I’d give Barry and Len back their bleed at the end, after a fashion.

I always intended for it to break. For Barry to tell Len he loves him only after there’s nothing in place that Len could possibly ‘blame’ for keeping Barry at his side or for distorting how Barry feels about him. I actually think that’s important, and kind of stand by that decision still. It seriously wasn’t done for shock value or to hurt the reader. Subverting the soulmate tropes? Yes. But with a lot of forethought.

But. I think I’d give it back. I’d make their Mark turn into a Widow Mark (it’s not specified in the fic currently but it never does go black, and I’d change that) but like Caitlin and Ronnie, I’d have some measure of the bleed return to them, after a bit. I’d give a bit more space at the end to flesh that out, I think, too. The end was a bit rushed. I was just so ready to be done with the long fucking thing that AATJS is and I write very quick resolutions post-climax as a general rule, but I think it needed a bit more than I gave it.

So yeah, I’d have it start to flutter and return. Maybe not as strong, maybe stunted. “A little scarred and jagged, just like us.” It would be nice, right? And I’d do it even maybe just shortly after the love confession, even. Because while it’s sort of a picture-perfect happy ending... after all the complete and utter bullshit and heaviness of the fic, they sort of deserve that? (i.e., you can tell I was pretty depressed when I first started writing this, I think....)

Another minor change I’d make is about their discussions on kids. I wouldn’t change much except to make Len’s issues on it clearer, him seriously wanting kids, always wanting kids, but not letting himself want them. I’d introduce that to his cognitions before Barry ever bringing it up, I think, but make it clear that Len’s in total denial about it.

I’d also change... something about Kane. I’m not sure what, exactly. Because there’s a serious issue in the fic with the whole “lesbians always die” trope. Because there’s Pam and Angie, who lived a long and happy life but ultimately are both dead by the end of the fic, even if they died of old age. And there’s Bette and Kane, who never even got to be together before Bette died. And that’s... so shitty I hate it. I don’t know what I’d fix about it because I love Pam and Angie so much and I like what Pam’s existence brings to the story via Mick, and I love Kane and her motivations help humanize her and what she’s been through at Eiling and Elias’s hand but... I’m still somewhat dissatisfied. So I’d fix something in there.

And the most minor of changes: I’d never in a million years include such cringe-worthy attempts to use random words from other languages from both Hartley and James’ PoVs, especially swear words. Like wtf, why. Just why. That’s a trope I learned from fic and while showcasing bilingualism is great, or having Hartley spout off random Latin phrases when appropriate is in character, I really went about it so poorly. So sorry, guys. It’s just... cringeworthy.

Conclusion

That’s all of them off the top of my head. Some of these came about just due to hindsight (the Hartley and James stuff, the making motives and mindsets clearer) and some came about because they’re Bad Tropes I became aware of either during or after writing it. Some are because I knew more or less that, for instance, the military was going to abduct Len and do something with his Bond/NAB to mess with Barry’s head and ultimately the Bond would break, but I didn’t actually have the military’s motives pinned down until right before I worked on that arc of the fic. So there’s a lot of meandering and not a lot of proper build into the specifics there, with a lot of details introduced right at that arc toward the end. That’s just something that happens that means things inherently will improve on re-writing.

Not that I ever intend to re-write that monster (omg I would never have the time or energy) but it’s always good to take an honest look at your writing, and I figured it might even help other writers out there if I candidly shared some major changes my fic could use to improve :) Because we can all always improve.

And hey, if I ever decide to take this fic and turn it into an original work (probably dropping the metahuman element but supplanting it with something else... I’ve genuinely mapped out how I’d write it as an original work), then at least I know what the structure would look like :

[karenpbrown12-blog]

Thistlekeeping

Random thoughts on a crisp, fall, sunny morning:

1.  I cannot thank you enough for yesterday.  For the encouragement.  For the upliftingness.  For the ideas.  For the inspiration.  I'm happy to report that the landing is almost empty now.  The boxes are all in the rooms where they need to be unpacked.

And it's all thanks to you.

2.  Do you have any family traditions for Thanksgiving?  I'm trying to add a few to this year's celebration.  We have a thankful tree and we have cranberry bread.  I just want to add a few more.

3.  I can't wait to share a project I've been working on with a local showhouse.  I'm transforming it into a Christmas farmhouse.  Details to come.

4.  Did you see the winner of the Jeffrey Court Renovation challenge?  I'm SO PROUD of her.  It's such an incredible before and after.  You can see the winner here.

5.  In Texas, we take our football very seriously.  Last night was the cross-town showdown with our biggest rivals.

And?

We won.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TEN YEARS.

It's a good day to be us.

Now let's see what the internet has been up to this week.

This tree.

Seriously.

I let out a sigh when I saw it.

Absolute tree perfection.

See the rest of the tree here.

This is such a pretty project.

I love the asymmetrisim (is that even a word?) of the wreath.

See the DIY here.

Love this post on decorating mistakes.

I make them ALL the time.

Read the entire list here.

And this.

This fall flower arrangement would be perfect for the sideboard at Thanksgiving.

Details on how to make it found here.

  And in random news this week:

I just watched this movie and cried at the end

How to keep live garlands fresh

Decorating with this

This truth

These ceilings

These Thanksgiving place card ideas

This painted brick home

Tips for improving your handwriting

This blue and white house tour

This made my heart happy

And still…

…one of my favorite Christmas tours on this planet

And this is still one of my favorite trees ever.

It's all about the handmade ornaments.

See the tree and the handmade ornament ideas here.

The post Thistlekeeping appeared first on Thistlewood Farm.