#combing my new and old hyperfixations

[soggy-fishsticks]

i drew cloud as utena tenjou from revolutionary girl utena! :D

[stormz369]

The King of Hell and Me: Ch 2 - Molting

Chapter Guide Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4

Summary: Lucifer goes missing because he's embarrassed. Preening ensues. Wolf-demon reader. Warnings: fluff, Lucifer being bad at vulnerability, animal characteristics, implied arousal, rated mature (maybe?) Word Count: 3k

Lucifer had his own home, of course. But since the hotel’s grand re-opening, he’d been staying in his suite here. To be closer to Charlie, or to get himself out of his depression funk, or maybe both, it wasn’t clear. Either way, we’d found ourselves spending a lot of time together. We ate breakfast together most days, he told me all about his most recent duck-based inventions, and he was the only person I let into my office while I was doing my work for the hotel. Charlie had hired me as an all-purpose consultant, letting me work on any projects I wanted, and I dove straight into the advertising/community outreach/PR side of things. My work didn’t typically look like much until I had a completed product to present, so I didn’t like to have people watching my process, and as long as I kept her in the loop Charlie didn’t mind my secretive ways. But Lucifer was a creative mind too. He understood that sitting at my desk apparently doing nothing wasn’t actually nothing, and he let me be.

He was also the only person allowed to put things in my office, but that was only because he felt it was odd that I was a wolf without a pack, -because “Even hellhounds have packs, dear girl! Wolf-demons aren’t that uncommon, you need a family!”- and had started making one for me, a slowly growing pack of rubber ducks with wolf ears and fluffy tails. Every so often I’d find a new one in my office, and each one did something unusual. A pair facing each other on the windowsill had a laser between them that would alert us to intruders, but most were silly things like duck-wolves that could jump and growl, or were actually soap dispensers or changed color with the weather. 

It actually worked out to be a mutually beneficial relationship. We both had a tendency to dive headfirst into our hyperfixations, and when one of us did, the other usually managed to keep them from spiraling too far. He’d comb my hair and fur, and remind me to take breaks. I’d bring him dinner and get him out of his room when he was getting frustrated. One time I even sat in the bathroom taking notes while he talked so he could shower without losing his flow. We weren't exactly romantic, but it was far more emotionally intimate than any romantic relationship I’d ever had. And, with no one else filling that role for either of us, we did end up on the receiving end of a lot of ‘old married couple’ jokes. 

And that’s why, when he suddenly just wasn’t at the hotel one morning, I got a bit nervous. And, I’ll be honest, frustrated. I reminded myself that just because we typically spent breakfasts together didn’t mean we had to every day. Just because he’d told me every time he was leaving the hotel for the last few months didn’t mean he was beholden to me. We were friends, but he wasn’t mine and I couldn’t tell him what to do. I had no right or reason to be put off by this unexpected change to my routine. So I ate breakfast alone, went down to my office to work alone, and … couldn’t get into it. I couldn’t focus, everything was just a bit off. I should be able to hear his breathing, see his faint glow out of the corner of my eye, feel his hands in my hair. But I was entirely, soul crushingly, alone. 

I texted him every day for the first week. Then once every few days, which quickly became once a week, but he never responded. He didn’t even look at them. I was starting to think he might be mad at me, but I couldn’t imagine what I could have done to upset him so much. I started working evenings, finding it less uncomfortable to be alone at night, but I had trouble getting much done either way. Charlie started bringing me breakfast in my office when everyone else had dinner. I appreciated that she was making sure I ate, but I was just as worried about her as she was about me. Lucifer hadn’t reached out to her either, and he wasn’t taking her calls, and her calm facade was starting to crack. At least she had Vaggie though. I was just alone.

A month into his disappearance I was working late again. Everyone was in bed, and I was trying to finish up this advertising campaign mock up for Charlie, when I heard the door of the hotel creak open. My ears perked up, and I cracked my office door open, listening carefully. I couldn’t make out who had come to visit. There were footsteps, light and airy but far too heavy to be Lucifer. I sniffed the air, glad for my more animalistic senses, hoping to catch some kind of clue. Friend, or foe? Welcome, or defend? The air smelled … musty, and damp. Something was very off.

I flicked my wrist, extending my claws, and made my way silently down the dark hallway. The intruder stumbled up the stairs, it would be silent to those without acute hearing, but I heard every step. I followed along, trying to visualize where they were from the sounds. They made their way past the elevator and up more flights of stairs, and I tracked along behind them, staying a floor below them to avoid detection. I wanted to know who they were, but I also wanted to know what they were looking for. When they finally made their way down a hallway, I glowered. They were on Charlie’s floor. I waited, listening halfway up the stairs so I could pounce if needed, until I heard them stop at a door. I jumped up, landing a few feet away from the short, trenchcoat clad figure. They jumped, pressing themself against the wall as if they could disappear through it, and dropped … a key?

“... Lucifer?” I whispered.

He turned toward me, a sheepish grin on his face. “... Heeey … I’m home!”

I sighed, scooping up his key and unlocking his door, gesturing for him to go inside. “Don’t wake Charlie.”

He nodded, darting inside. His footfalls were too heavy, he was hunched over a bit, and his back looked bulky under his coat. Something was wrong. He sat awkwardly on the couch, kicking his feet a bit. “Sooo … How’ve you been?”

“How have I been? … Luc, where have you been? … Y- you didn’t call, you didn’t tell anyone where you were going, or when you’d be back, you sneak in in the dead of night in whatever that is, you smell like a drowned bird, and you’re walking like an injured dog. And you ask how I’ve been???” A deranged laugh ripped its way out of my throat as I collapsed onto the seat next to him. “... Do you even care that we’ve all been worried sick? … I … you didn’t text me back … You were just … gone.”

He flinched a bit, hesitantly reaching for my hand. “... I .. I’m sorry, puppy … I didn’t mean to scare you. I just … I had something to attend to.”

I sighed softly, letting him take my hand. “What was so important that you couldn’t even tell us you were ok?”

“I … just had to …” He sighed. “Look, it’s kind of embarrassing, ok? I …” He mumbled something, a low whine in the back of his throat masking his words.

“... What was that?”

“I’m molting, ok?” He whined, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m molting, and I can’t comfortably put my wings away until it’s over, and they’re ugly right now! So I just … I thought I’d just go to the manor until it was over. I was only coming back tonight to get my sketchbook so I could work on a project…”

I blinked a bit, trying not to laugh. “... Right. … Just so I’m clear, cause I didn’t really interact with birds on earth. Molting is the one where birds lose a bunch of feathers and get new ones, right?” He nodded. “And it’s a yearly thing?”

He nodded again, “For most birds. Angels get a little one each year, and a big one each decade. It takes forever! It’s … unpleasant. Messy …” He grumbled softly; “humiliating.”

“Humiliating? It’s just part of having wings, isn’t it? How is that humiliating?”

“... You’ve seen my wings, what did you think of them?”

I let out a sigh, thinking. “... They’re bigger than I expected, but that makes sense since you’re not a bird. They’d have to be pretty big to lift you up … unless you’ve got hollow bones and they’re just ostentatious?” I chuckled a bit, hoping to lighten his mood, but it didn’t seem to work. “... They’re beautiful, and they look really soft … You look so majestic when you fly …”

“Exactly. … Beautiful. Majestic. That’s what they’re supposed to be … but when the molt comes they’re … really not that. … Molting is messy, and itchy, and … gross! … I look like a plucked chicken under this coat…” He whined softly, frustrated tears pricking at his eyes as he hid his face in his hands. “And the worst part is that I can’t even rush it along like we did in heaven, because I can’t reach!”

“... Can’t reach? … Do you have to pluck something, or?”

He nodded. “At the end of the molt the new feathers have these keratin sheaths that have to be removed … In heaven we’d get a few trusted angels together and circle up, but I can’t do that here! So I just have to wait for them to peel off on their own!”

I frowned softly, gently stroking his shoulder. He whined softly, looking at me hesitantly. “Lucifer, … I’m sure this is a … sensitive topic, and I’m sure there’s a reason you didn’t ask, but … if you wanted to ask, … I would help. And I promise, I wouldn’t judge you for what they look like right now, or talk to anyone else about it, or anything like that … It’s just like when you got that matt out of my fur, that was pretty embarrassing for me, but I couldn’t see it well enough to get it out myself. So you sat down with me, and you took a set of combs, and detangling spray, and a pair of scissors, and you fixed it for me. … You could have just cut it out, but you didn’t. You sat there and meticulously detangled it for hours, and then you trimmed everything so it wouldn’t get bad so easily again. Remember? … I could do the same for you.”

He nodded slowly, sighing softly. “I just … I didn’t want you to see … you don’t understand, they look really bad right now …”

“So did my neck.”

He thought for a moment, sighing before he carefully slipped the ugly beige trench coat off. His wings were pressed firmly against his back, almost trembling. He turned away, letting me get a good look at them. The majority of his flight feathers had already gone through the process, but about half of the fluffy down feathers were still encased, or partially encased, in cylindrical sheaths. I smiled softly, gently stroking down his spine. “It really doesn’t look so bad, Luci. Let’s get comfy, ok? Do you wanna lay down somewhere?”

A shiver went up his spine, and his wings attempted to puff up in response. It did look a bit sad, but I wasn’t gonna tell him that. He was feeling uncomfortable enough as it was. His wings were usually a source of great pride for him, I wasn’t about to make this harder for him. He slowly nodded, and carefully got up. I followed him to his bedroom, a little concerned by how wobbly he seemed.

“... Luc, is the molt really the only thing that’s going on? You seem a bit … off?”

He collapsed onto his bed, pulling a pillow under his chest and crossing his arms under himself. “It’s enough … The little molts take a lot of energy, but the big ones … The big ones really suck … I’ve been in bed pretty much since I left …”

I nodded, sitting next to him. “I see … so, I just start peeling these things off the feathers?”

He nodded. “Gently, please … You can roll them a bit if they resist, but if that doesn’t work move on to the next one. Most of them should be ready though.”

I hummed softly, gently taking the wing in front of me and carefully extending it. He groaned softly, following my movements compliantly. I let the wing rest on my legs and began carefully sliding my fingertips over the little cylinders. Most of the keratin sheaths started to flake and crumble away under my touch, and I carefully rolled the slightly more resistant ones between my fingers. Under my touch, fluffy down and contour feathers began to emerge. I gently brushed the debris away, careful of my claws. I knew I had to do this perfectly; to prove he could trust me with things like this. He wasn’t moving or making any noises though, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad.

I worked methodically from the bottom where his wing attached to his back, up and out to the wingtip, periodically brushing the detritus away and stroking his freshly exposed feathers. I finished the right side and got halfway through the wings on the left before I ran into one that started to peel away, but then didn’t want to budge. I was about to move on like he’d told me, but I paused when I heard the first noise Lucifer made since I started touching his wings; a high pitched whine. He squirmed uncomfortably, and his wings ruffled up a bit.

“... Luci? D- did I hurt you?”

“Noooo … I want it off …” He whimpered softly, pressing his face into the pillow. “... C- Can you scratch it a bit? Just a bit!”

I nodded, humming softly my agreement, and carefully ran a claw along the sheath. His high whine returned, but this time it seemed a bit more … pleased? I scratched again, watching little bits of the sheath peel away. After just a little bit more the sheath fell away entirely, releasing its fluffy feather, and Lucifer sighed happily. 

“Ohhh fuck~ … Oh, that’s so much better! Your hands are magic~” He moaned softly, bringing a blush to my cheeks.

I cleared my throat; “... I’m glad you’re liking it, Luc.”

I carefully continued to the tip of his wing. There were only a few that hadn’t been ready to go yet, and his wings were back to their full, shiny, fluffy glory. He sighed happily, but didn’t move to get up, so I just continued to stroke his feathers.

“Ahh~ … Puppy, that’s wonderful~ … But y- … you do know, wings are sensitive, yeah?” He slowly lifted his head, looking over his shoulder at me. The heat on his face made me squirm shyly, and I shakily removed my hands.

“S- Sorry … I …” I blushed bright red, scooting backwards. He whined softly, slowly sitting up and facing me.

He shakily reached for my hand, running his thumb over my fingers. “... I wasn’t trying to make you stop. …”

I blushed even more, looking up at him shyly. “... So … should I continue?”

He slowly lifted my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles gently. “... Only if you wish to.”

I nodded slowly, shakily pushing him to lay back down. He did, watching me out of the corner of his eye, and I straddled his hips, stroking his wings gently.

“... They’re so beautiful, Luci … You are beautiful …” I was mesmerized, letting my hands trail along the soft feathers. 

He sighed happily, settling under me. “... I cannot believe I let this go on for a full blessed month when I could have had your hands on me this whole time …”

I chuckled softly, continuing to preen him gently. “Never again, yes? You come to me for this, whenever you need it. Or even if you just want it. … You take care of me, and I take care of you.”

“Because we’re an old married couple.” He nodded, yawning softly. “Yes, love, anything wifey wants~”

I blushed brightly, trying desperately to stop the squeak from leaving my mouth. Others had called us a married couple before, mostly to tease us, but we had never said it. “... That’s right, husband. Anything I want.”

He smirked slightly. “Husband … I like the way that word sounds when you say it ... If you’re not careful, I might just make you my wife for real …”

“... And what exactly would ‘being careful’ look like?”

“Oh, you know. Not letting me touch you anymore, keeping me out of your office, making fun of my ducks. … Taking your hands off my wings would definitely count as being careful.”

I chuckled softly, steeling my nerves and leaning forward to kiss his cheek. I whispered against his ear; “sounds like a horrible way to live. I think I’ll take my chances.”

His eyes flew open, looking up at me. A bright red blush spread across his face, and a hesitant smile graced his lips. “... I agree. A horrible way to live.”

He carefully slid out from under me, turning around so I was in his lap instead, and gently cupped my cheek, rubbing gently with his thumb. I leaned into his touch, sighing happily, and he slid his hand up to stroke my fluffy wolf ear. An almost electric feeling shot through me, leaving me gasping, and I hesitantly looked up at him. He smirked slightly, pulling me closer and kissing me softly before he whispered in my ear; “Now don’t give me that look, love~ You’ve been doing it to me this whole time~”

[humanbyweight]

I saw your wasp post and I must say. I can’t tell if I envy you or pity you. You seem to be the epitome of that old curse to live in interesting times.

Thanks lol. It is a status condition that everyone with an arthropod hyperfixation must eventually bear.

I'm currently working on the 2nd edition of my wasp book for Princeton Press. I'm trying not to imagine all of the faces in hands at the meeting when I submit the final page count... 😅

The newest wasp is an undescribed species of Hilted Wasp (genus Mischocyttarus) from the Bahoruco Mountains along the Dominican Republic / Haiti border. Its morphology appears superficially similar to nearby Mischocyttarus (based on what I can see in images), but its range does not appear to overlap, and the extent of yellow in its color pattern is entirely unique.

The process of describing and naming a new species requires collecting specimens, examining them under a microscope, writing up a full research paper, and distributing type specimens to museum collections. As much as I would enjoy doing all of that, I don't have the time or resources at the moment, so I just flag undescribed species so that other (preferably local) entomologists can study them in greater detail.

Finding a new species every time I comb through iNaturalist data can be tiresome, but it is a reminder of the limitless beauty and breadth of the natural world, and a teasing glimpse of just how much there is to discover.

[cherry-pop-elf]

Weasley Siblings Helping You With Your Protective Hairstyling

Authors Note: I myself do not have textured hair, but I have friends who do. Along with friends who have family with such. I also did my best to research the best I can. DO COMMENT. I want to learn more about cultures and to educate myself after all. I wanna learn, and I want to share. I hope I do my best! If I got any information here wrong, DO say something. It can’t learn and grow if I don’t know, after all!

William ‘Bill’

Since he spent quite a lot of time in Egypt, and by proxy explored many countries for work, he would honestly have some good background in protective styles. He would probably figure out your hair type easy, even. So he’s going to certainly help you when you want to redo your braids. Know where to cut when you need to change them out. Even know when you got braids you smack them when they get itchy. He’s even willing to braid them by hand, instead of magic. He probably even has friends back in Egypt to talk to that can hook you up with the good shit. That good gel and conditioner. Even some fine silk Bonnets, when you need them. He’s going to know them well. Most certainly had colleagues, from Egypt, that had braids or locs even! If anyone will know how to care for your hair, it’s him. Also helps he’s a history buff, so for all you know he uncovered some old texts that can teach him new ways to help!

Charlie

He’s also a world travelver, and can be argued he’s been to more countries than Bill, but he was bit more hyperfixated on dragons over history. Doesn’t mean he knows nothing. He DOES know a lot about heat, and how it affects the world around it. He’s gonna know how to help you deal with that hit of humidity to the hair. Along with keep your hair safe when straightening it. He also knows a lot about locs. Definitely has coworkers with them, or at least keeps their hair under a Duka/wave cap. That’s something he so knows. Such as locs aren’t ’dirty hair’ and just another means of a style. Also that you gotta EARN EM. You need to go through so much to grow them, let alone care for them. He’s gotta respect the effort it takes to make after all. Of course he will help you care for em. Maybe he will ask advice on seeing if he has the hair type to have his own!

Percy

He doesn’t really know much about by much at all. He’s never had a reason to. But he does know how to keep clean. He’s going to help you make sure your hair gets a deep wash before braiding. You’ll never worry about braiding greasy hair, or if your fro isn’t conditioned enough. He’s also a nerd that reads a lot. He will try his best to read up on your hair type, but reading is different than actually working with it. He’s gonna mostly be on washing, combing, and conditioning duty. He’s just got skilled enough to make sure your braids are tight. A tight braid is a useless braid. But washing is still helping a tongue, and he will massage your neck whenever you need to take a break from braiding. Stuff like that can take days, after all. He will try and be as supportive as he can for it all. He’s trying his best, and that’s all that can be asked for.

Fred and George

Angelia is coming in clutch, because she is a “ended on good terms bestie” of them boys. So they know, at least the basics, when it comes to textured hair. Also helps they are incredibly quick witted, so they can pick up on things fast. Don’t get me started on how they probs can invent you different types of hair care products to unlock all the potential magic can offer. It’ll also help that they each can take a side of your head, and keep you entertained when braiding. They’ll make sure you have fun, and cared for. They’ll 100% invent a hair moisture spray to help you when your braids start itching. They would definitely love twists the most, to do to your hair. Hope you like orange and purple extensions. God the hair experiments. They’ll love trying out new hair styles on you endlessly. Hair clips in your fro, trying new braiding styles on your scalp, seeing what kind of extensions they can add. They love your textured hair. You can do so much with it, and they adore it so very much! They love your hair!

Ron

Same like the twins, Ron has a basic knowledge on textured hair. Thanks to Hermione, and Lavender (iykyk) And given it was two different types he has a more solid grasp that not all hair is the same. Hermiones was dramatically different from Lavenders, after all. (Also the Weasleys themselves have their own texture hair, just on the 2a to 2c kind. The weather will definitely make it 3a though.) Anyway, he will ask Hermione for advice anyway. Asking someone who DOES have textured hair, compared to bullshitting. He just isn’t the twins when it comes to faking it until you make it. The amount of times he’s sprayed himself in the face with hairspray is never ending, but he’s a fighter. Definitely will try and make sure he has some kind of wave cap on hand for you at all times. Along with hair comb. Just trying to do things to show he cares. He definitely finds pure joy in buying you bonnets. Something he can get you, and something that will always be useful for you.

Ginny

As the youngest, she learns alot from her brothers. From Hermione, Angelia, Lavender, her Quidditch players, and just typical by proxy of a girl sharing a dorm with girls that have to go through heavy routines for their nightly sleep. She just picks it up, absentmindedly, and doesn’t really notice until she applies it. She also has a lot of people for support when she wants to ask for advice. She WILL make those braids tight, and make sure your hair is pulled so far back you get a face lift. She is a certified ‘Ma’am I won’t have wrinkles until I’m eighty’ level of skill. She’s got you covered, and loves when you keep your hair natural as well. Reminds her of her older brother’s Bill and Charlie. Along with just finding hair pretty in general, having grown up surrounded by so many types. Shes gonna love doing your hair. She has never bern a 'girly girly' so she has fun doing it for others. Safe hands, no worries there!

[uncouth-the-fifth]

pythia, a supernatural rewrite. bloody mary, rough draft.

read it on ao3.

words: 6k notes: hi y'all! yes, you read that chapter title right - this is a little unconventional, but since I've unfortunately shifted hyperfixations and have drifted away from SPN, I thought I would post what I have for the next part of pythia. since I'm moving into resident evil land, I'm not sure if I'm going to come back to this fic—but I absolutely didn't want to leave you guys empty-handed!! I'm so so sorry that this fic will go unfinished (for now), and I'm so grateful to those who were along for the ride with me. I have so much love for all the people who motivated me through writing this fic. all of you are beyond kind!! and I hope you enjoy this dose of pythia content, featuring some of my notes and process-work, lol. I only had a few heavy chunks of the beginning written, but the prose for this chap (ironically) started to get into the meat of what I really wrote this fic for—psychic bullshit between reader and Sam. It was just too plain juicy to not share!! All of my spn fics will remain up, but if you keep up with me, expect lots of Leon Kennedy bullshit and tomfoolery. Again - thank you so much for your endless love and support, I had so much fun writing what I could of season one!! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this unfinished chunk of silly/ansty Christmas drama :)

EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN - Dec 21st, evening.

Sam drops the stack of glossy, brand-new legal pads into his lap, and flashes his brother a plain smile. “Thanks, Dean. I needed more of these.” From your spot seated on the living room rug, you twist your rings and wait for Dean’s witty reply. With all those notes you’re always makin', Sammy, I’ll hafta buy you some for New Years, too. You wait for him to make a crack about the gift he got Sam, something about diaries or his brother’s girly handwriting.

Instead, Dean shrugs, “Well, then there ya go.”

Voila. And with that, the feeble threads you’d tried to braid into a proper Christmas are cut. Without a word, your Mom picks up the little wooden jewelry case the three of you had thrifted her and recedes into the dark hallways of the house. Dean peels himself out of his seat to clean up. Sam sighs, picking at the plastic seal around his legal pads. Hilariously, this all plays out while Paul McCartney chimes about what wonderful Christmastime he’s been having from the radio in your kitchen.

Technically, you hadn’t just been celebrating Christmas. No, you managed to completely bomb both Christmas and the sacred Winter Solstice sabbat that the Proctors had been celebrating for a bajillion fucking years. The special sabbat that would have a real spiritual effect on you for the next couple months.

You’d given it a good ol’ college try. First, you’d painstakingly picked out gifts for the boys and your Mom. Good ass gifts, too, that you’d been hiding in your duffle since summertime. Hell, you’d been looking for the Eagles album you bought for Dean in tape form for at least two years. (Cool, Dean had said, half alive in his armchair after your chupacabra hunt in Illinois. He was at the ugly front end of a cold. He’d sniffled, Don’t have this one.) And knowing that this would be Sam’s first Christmas without Jess—the one person who had given him any kind of good holiday when he was away from home—you’d poured extra love into his gift, too.

He’d been begging you to read Frankenstein since high school, and you’d dodged it because sometimes books that pushed too far into the “classics” category could lose you. Mary Shelley got a little wordy at times. But you were a big girl with a big brain, so you’d read the whole thing for Sam… and annotated the whole thing for Sam…

He’d taken one look at your labor of love and murmured, “Good. Glad you read it.”

…Yeah. You had half a mind to check if he’d been replaced by a clone, hearing that. Fifteen-year-old Sam would have melted into a babbling, ecstatic mess if someone had carefully combed through one of his favorite books and shared their thoughts on it with him. Bare minimum, you figured he’d at least enjoy having his own copy of Shelley’s work. All his other books had been lost in the fire.

But you’d given the book to a Sam who was twenty-two, not fifteen. Fine. People changed.

The boys being a collective bummer was something you could deal with. Sam was always sullen around the holidays, and you couldn’t exactly be mad at Dean for being exhausted after a stressful hunt. But your Mom…

Beth used to make Yule her bitch. When you were a kid, come December 1st, the Proctor House could easily have been the center of all Wicca celebrations in the world. If working retail during the holidays tested one’s love for festive music, then the non-stop winter songs bouncing off Beth’s vinyl player would’ve made Santa beg to hear something else. Every room would gush with the smell of evergreen branches and holly. Your family’s altar, the home of all the love and joy for the season, would be lush with offerings and presents. The candles you lit as a family to welcome the light of the new year would glow in a neat row—your little silver candle, your mother’s tall red one… and the biggest. Your Dad’s.

Now, your Dad’s candle was tucked away with the rest of the unused decorations in the attic. From your spot on the floor, you couldn’t help but stare at your piss-poor excuse for a family altar. Beth hadn’t “had the time” to find the table runner your great-grandmother had embroidered just for that space. The small bouquet of mistletoe you’d brought sat pathetically on the wide, barren surface, framed by your family’s dollar-store candles: silver for you, red for Mom, and twin green candles for the boys. 

It was stupid. Really, you shouldn’t have cared so much. You were almost twenty-five, and the older you got the less people cared about silly, trivial things like a single holiday out of the year. That was just a fact of life.

Still, an ugly ball of bitterness sat in your gut. She couldn’t have tried to decorate? Even out on the road, you’d still found ways to make today a little special for the people you loved. Did she really have such little strength left in her? You’d dragged the boys up to Wisconsin with you so your Mom didn’t have to be alone. Was it really that impossible, after eleven whole years without your Dad, to try and be happy?

Fuck this. Yule isn’t over yet. There’s still time for you to squeeze some life out of today, and you’re going to start straight at the source. You find your Mom in the kitchen, mindlessly swiping invisible crumbs off pristine counters. When she senses you paused behind her in the kitchen doorway, clutching in both hands the gift she got you this year, the radio suddenly needs to be toyed with. Then cleaned. There are gray strands in her hair that shine like tinsel in the low kitchen light.

“Hey,” you say, your voice bright and christmas-card perfect. “I don’t think I got to say thank you for the gift.” (You did. More than once already.) “It’s been a bit since I read this one.” The gift in question is your Dad’s second edition print of The Shining. It’s even older than you are, with soft, petal-thin pages that reek of that wonderful old book musk. Rolling the flexed and cracked paperback between your hands, your Gift automatically picks up the distant echo of the hands that had touched these pages when they were new.

When you were little, you’d always found it kind of strange that your Dad considered this book his favorite. He was a sweet, soft-spoken person, and the mental image of him indulging in uncensored horror novels didn’t mesh with the Ray preserved in your head. Having since grown up and read it for yourself, you understood that it was less about the gore of the Overlook and more about “the shine;” the array of psychic abilities that kept five-year-old Danny Torrance alive through the book.

Years of having book-club with Sam had trained you to form cultivated opinions about the stuff you read, but The Shining existed in a realm that made it hard for you to describe how you felt about it. See, you had Danny Torrance’s shine—on the same level, too, enough shine to power the decades of ghostly ballroom parties and mob conspiracies inside the Overlook for a century. Seeing your Gift put onto a page so nakedly and cinematically made you uncomfortable. Yet, feeling the weight of your father’s book in your hands, standing in the kitchen he hasn’t touched in a decade, you know that it must’ve comforted him. Back then, surrounded by a psychic mother-in-law, girlfriend, and daughter, it would've been impossible to survive without a little shine of his own. You’re sure that your Dad's Gift was faint and unimpressive next to the psychic blackholes of your Mom and Grandma. Just enough to know if you’d skinned your elbow or had a nightmare. On the days that you came home from school tear-streaked and ruddy-faced, Dad would be waiting on the porch with soup.

You can still feel the faint psychic imprint of one of his whiskery kisses on your face. You don’t have many vivid impressions of him left to feel; none that haven’t been rubbed again and again, like the hollow of a fingerprint smoothed into the face of a rock over time.

Your Mom gives a non-committal hum at your attempt at conversation. Not because she doesn’t care—you can feel how much she cares from across the room—but because she’s tired. Adult Tired, like when she’d turn down your pleas to play together as a kid. Not tonight, baby. Momma’s exhausted.

“Mom,” you say, sounding as glossy and clean as a brand-new cookie tin. You open your mouth to say more, maybe to start in on one of your long-winded book-rants that had everyone wondering where Sam had suddenly appeared from. You know the answer, but you ask anyway, “This was one of Dad’s favorite books, right? I vaguely remember him talking about the hedge animals.” Beth accidentally hits a button as she’s dragging a rag over the shiny front of the radio, forcing Paul McCartney to have yet another wonderful Christmastime. She doesn’t look at you.

“Yup. But you knew that already, honey.”

C’mon. Nothing? She won’t even throw you the smallest, most pathetic olive branch? A psychic battle occurs. You get so frustrated all at once that your throat closes up, and that frustration balloons out into your family kitchen like the expansion of a bomb. You push. There is no give. The bubbling stormcloud of grief and loss hanging around Mom is there, then it’s not. The side of the kitchen your mother stands on is suddenly a void of absolute nothingness, empty of any feeling whatsoever, good or bad. She’s cutting you off from reading her—and protecting herself from your explosive emotions, as per usual.

Beth keeps cleaning the radio, her back to you.

Your rage bubbles out of you all at once. One day! One day out of the entire fucking year, the day your Dad always made special, and she can’t even pull herself together for that. You know you should be a good daughter and empathize with the woman who made you, but you’ve been a good daughter about this since you were twelve years old. Eleven Yules have gone by since your Dad passed. Just for one measly moment, you want to talk about him like he’s not a corpse rotting in the living room.

And the worst part is that Mom knows that. She’s known you’ve felt that way all day, a slow-bubbling pot building to a boil across the room. The two of you can always feel each other. You’re the only two who can; she’s the only other radio tower that can receive your station in its purest quality, and yet she has the gall to shut all her signals down.

“Fine!” You burst out, making the conversation physical.

It should feel good to yell, really. After the slow, ungratifying day you’ve had, you’ve been a shaken soda bottle waiting to implode. Instead, since you’re the crazy person yelling at nothing for no reason in the kitchen, your anger booms out of you and fizzes out in the same breath like a faulty firework. Fine. Fuck all of this. If you can’t beat em’, join em’. If everyone’s determined to rot the day away, then you’ll go wallow in self-pity the Proctor-Winchester way, too. Merry fucking Christmas, and a happy fucking Yule.

There is no satisfying door to slam on your way out of the kitchen. You take a sharp right down the front hall, hoping to veer up the stairs and slam your feet down on every single step up to your room. If your Mom wants to live forever in the year your Dad died, by all means—you’ll even bring home your thirteen-year-old self and her childish tantrums, just for time-accurate ambiance. Sam’s standing frozen just outside the kitchen archway, and you catch his deer-in-headlights look as you go peeling around the corner. You’re still keyed up with enough lashing rage to spare, so seeing him, just as hollowed-out and not there as your Mom, only feeds your pyre.

As you get to work thoroughly stomping the staircase to death, you hear him go into the kitchen and ask Beth about soup for Dean’s sore throat.

Upstairs is even more painfully quiet. Through the floor, Paul McCartney muffles down to a cheery mumble. All old houses shift around a little, but yours settles like it's alive, clicking, creaking, swaying. You don’t look at the portraits of Proctor women up the stairwell. The dusty grandfather clock in the hall watches you with its stained glass face, and you’re so lost in your own head—

—and Dad’d be so pissed we didn’t decorate the altar or listen to the Tull Christmas album, he’d riot, he’d talk some sense into her—wouldn’t think any of this is stupid— —that you don’t hear it when it chimes. Muscle memory plants you right in front of your bedroom door. Having a good cry under the covers sounds like a perfect end to the night, right? And yet you stop. Your hand drops on the knob and stays there, unmoving. Maybe it’s your Gift, or good old-fashioned human instinct knowing when something in the home has been nudged two inches to the left, but the air in the hall tastes staler than usual. A draft? Your gaze is pulled all the way down to the opposite end of the hall, where the untouched, stately storage room door is ajar.

Your Mom probably left it open. Maybe she’d gone in there to hunt around for all the heirloom Yule decorations, only to rediscover Dad’s football memorabilia or Dad’s engraved cigarette case and go bolting out of the room. —everything’s different without him, Sam and Mom and Dean too. So am I. Everything’s twisted—without him— Still riding the whirlwind, you stomp from one end of the yellowing, starry zodiac carpet (Aries) to the other (Pisces), the floorboards squeaking under your weight. You push the door and it goes shuddering into the darkness. This was one of many rooms in the house that Mom had banished you from as a kid, mostly as a way to shoo you away from the hunting world. It’d given you this insatiable fascination with it as a result, but when you tug the chain to turn on the closest lamp, what it illuminates doesn’t come close to the spectacular stories you’d made up in your head.

It’s just a room. It has windows and shelves and old things, some from your childhood, some from your Mom’s. Some from even further back than that. The closest fascinating thing is a shiny gold blob poking out of your baby things, which turns out to be Sam’s eighth-grade mathlete trophy. You had no idea what possessed Mom to come up here so often. There was no way she wasn’t in here at least a couple times a week; the tall metal storage shelf where she immortalized your Dad’s things was never dusty, and yet the whole room reeked of rotting books and insulation. You shove the box with Sam’s trophy aside with your foot until it skids out of your way, and then send the heavy door shut behind you with a wall-shaking bang.

A flurry of dust hails down from the ceiling. You cough through the cloud, wandering in your blindness towards the neat row of plastic storage tubs labeled with your Dad’s name. Clothes. Misc. Books. Maybe that’s where Mom had gotten your new copy of The Shining from, halfway through one of her sacred meditations over Dad’s things. You drop a hand onto the cold lid of the tub. Nothing, not even the slightest psychic imprint, reaches back.

What is she even holding onto anymore? You try the clothes next. The rounded corners of this bin have been scuffed gray from how many times it’s been pulled off and then pushed back on its shelf, again and again. The case feels as lifeless to you as it would for anyone else, but you try your luck and slide it out onto the floor. It comes loose with a solid thud.

When you were old enough, Beth would sometimes send you up into this room to grab things (spell ingredients, books you didn’t keep downstairs). You would run full-tilt right up until you hit the storage room door, then pass inside like a stranger in a dangerous realm, watching where you stepped and always, always keeping your Dad’s shelf in the corner of your eye. On brave days you would pick up his silvery cigarette case and roll it between your palms. It grew harder and harder to feel him each time, the ghost of him whittled down like a rock made round by the current of a river.

When you crack off the lid, you expect some kind of smell. You don’t remember what he smelled like, but you have a few guesses—cheap, vanilla-sweet aftershave, or maybe the woody stale smell of cigarette smoke you know you shouldn’t love. Maybe both. It doesn’t really matter. The neatly folded stacks of your Dad’s old shirts and jackets don’t smell like a damn thing. You dip your face into a holey band-shirt with the sleeves scissored off, but all that comes back to you is the rotten smell of dusty insulation. He’s here—he’s right here in front of you, right in your fucking hands, and yet the whole world is dead of him. You can’t sense even a sliver of him left.

The same old reservoir of despair pushes and pushes at your composure, wiggling through your cracks, widening them with a hundred thousand tons of pressure bearing down on you a minute. It is a day by day task to handle the reservoir. You like to think you’re good at handling it, at patching the cracks as they come and letting them breathe when the moment calls for it. But when you lift your face from the bin, the leak springs—really, genuinely springs, like it hasn’t in years.

You fall back onto your haunches, swallowing back sudden stinging tears. The bin and its askew lid go shrieking back onto the shelf with a lash of your foot.

-

The music downstairs stops. You can’t tell how long it’s been.

When his death was fresh, and you were stuck deep, deep within the reservoir, you’d wondered if it would always feel this way. It got easier, right? And in many ways it had—on most days you could talk about your Dad without it hurting, letting the dam’s water run. The battle was still there, but it was a burden you were proud to carry if it meant his memory lived on in you. He would want you to be happy, your Mom used to urge. So you gave being happy your best shot, loving and giving as much as you could.

That’s what frustrated you so endlessly about your Mom. She’d been right; your Dad would’ve wanted the two of you to move on, and yet she still entombed herself in the bottom of her reservoir far too often. There was no release, no acceptance with her. The dark part of you that wanted to pass blame wondered if this was all because of John, and how well Winchester grief happened to mingle with a Proctor’s. How would your mother’s life be different, if the evil that’d taken Dad hadn’t been put down a week later? Would she be just as hellbent? With your knees sore from pressing into the floor, you knew the answer. You knew if the thing that’d taken Sam or Dean from you was right in front of you, you’d chase it until you were in your own grave. You knew that even after it was dead, you would be digging your nails into the backseat of the Impala and clawing for every psychic molecule of them left in the leather.

And that’s what scared you—was she just going to be chasing Dad forever, til’ there wasn’t a wisp of him left in the world to feel? 

Something dawns on you, thudding through your mind like a rock dropped down a chute. With limp hands, you slide The Shining towards you on the worn wood floor, part the pages with your thumbs, and press your nose into the binding. There’s the smoky, earthy scent of old paper first… then something just underneath the surface that no one but you and your Mom can pick up.

Old books. Yes. Yes, that’s what Dad had smelled like.

-

You’re seated on the floor of the storage room, back pressed to one of the ancient metal shelves holding up your gramma’s VCR collection, when a blot of the future is tossed at you. Cheap deodorant and lemon cough drops.

Around a minute later, the stairs beyond the door squeak under someone’s weight. Even without the roulette glimpse of the future, you can tell by the footfalls who it is. Heavy knuckles rap the door and come straight in without waiting for an answer. Behind him, the silence of the rest of the house is even heavier.

You try to sound like a reasonable adult, but the mopey teenager slips out anyway. “Thought you were sick, Dean.”

He artfully dodges your point. (Dean is, after all, a master of the craft.) You don’t look back at him, but the lemon cough-drops glimpse you got of him creates a clear picture: Dean’s whole body listing into the door frame, one hand on the knob, his face lacking its usual color. His cheeks have graduated from stubbly to scruffy, neglected. “Hey,” he says. It’s the, okay, you’re done cooling down, let’s have a grown-up conversation kind of hello.

You don’t know what to say back. You’re not sure if you can have any kind of conversation right now.

Dean rolls with it, trying to decide if this silence is begging for a subject change or a heart-to-heart. You’re not sure what he goes for when he says, “I had an idea.” “Did it hurt?” You joke. Jokes you can do.

There’s his opening. After a beat, you’re—

—fucking lobbed with a foam football. Like you’re fucking twelve. Dean’s throw arcs straight towards your head and bounces clean off the top, a perfect spiral. You yelp in outrage, and before you can think you’re following where the stupid ball went so you can clock him right in the face with it. Asshole. It loop-de-loops on the floor around an old dining chair, and you clamber on your knees to fish for it.

Just when you get the toy in your hands and you’re about to demolish him with it, Dean ducks behind the doorway, chuckling, “Woah! No face shots! You wouldn’t bash a poor, sick guy’s face in, would’ja?”

God. You can’t fucking believe him. If anyone else did that…

You lower your hackles and drop the foam toy into a basket, far out of reach of congested troublemakers. When his shining eyes appear in the slit of the doorway again, your cheeks are aching with an impossible smile. “You’re lucky it’s Christmas, loser. What is it?”

Dean hesitates a moment more, just in case you’ve got something else to throw at him, then joins you in the storage room with the evil little oily smile you love. The same dust cloud that got you earlier descends on him in a rough coughing fit, but this lets him get a good look at the little mess you’ve made: the book on the floor, your Dad’s things open and askew. When he clears his throat for the last time, he looks pained.

For your sake, you pretend it’s an empathetic kind of pained. And you know that’s a part of it—Dean doesn’t enjoy seeing you and your Mom like this. But it’s an unfortunate fact of your life that you will have four times as much context for him than he will ever have for you. Just breathing the same dusty air as him, you know he’s been nursing a sinus headache since Monday, one that’s made his head feel like it’s chock-full of stuffing, and that Sam made him canned chicken noodle soup—and at first he felt a little smug making Sam play nurse, until he stewed on it more and—

—hate it when he gives me that dead-eyed look, like he can’t even pretend to care anymore. Like he’s just dragging himself through this for our sake. Poor kid scares the shit outta me. Is this how it’s always gonna be? Sammy aching over her, night after night after night—

You know just touching the bins holding your Dad’s things that on a icy February afternoon in 1994, fifteen-year-old Dean had picked up the plastic tubs for your Mom from the store.

So when he gives you that pained look, you know it’s part-concern, part-fear. If this is what you look like eleven years after your Dad’s passing… if John never comes home from his hunting trip, is this what Dean will become? The loyal son, waiting and waiting on that porch for a man who would never come home? 

Your whole life, you’ve felt like you were becoming more and more like Dean; lately, it feels like he’s becoming so much like you. Your last four years on the road together had slowly but surely melded you together.

“Okay, so, Yule’s a fire festival, right?” Dean grasps around in his memory for the yearly history lesson your Mom gives about the Wicca calendar. “Uh, we lit candles… I thought about burning Beth’s Muppet Christmas CD with my lighter a couple times. That’s about all the fiery, burny-stuff we did today.”

“I love the Muppets Christmas album,” you pout.

“After the millionth partridge in John Denver’s goddamn pear tree, you’d change your mind,” Dean swears. “But I was thinkin’—we got the firepit in the backyard, marshmallows, and I think I could put together some vodka shots. Then we can blow em' out and eat em' with the s'mores.” Your eyebrows raise. Only he, of all people, could take your sacred family traditions and twist them into such a wonderful, stupid-ass thing. Maybe it’s ridiculous, but… there is chocolate and graham crackers downstairs… and with how cold it is outside, a fire would be perfect… It’s the best blend of weird Proctor-Winchester traditions you need to save Christmas and Yule. Dean takes your silence as glowing awe. “Exactly. I told you, I'm a fuckin' genius. Helluva way to start the wiccan year, right? You in?”

You’re well aware that this is an elaborate plan to coax you away from your moping. Still, it’s just too Dean to turn down. “...Hell yeah.”

At first R hopes that it’s just her and Dean, and that Sam and Beth keep their grief to themselves. But then she realizes how cruel and selfish she’s been—everyone grieves in their own way, and just because she works through it by talking about it doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. It’s not good that Beth is holding on so tightly to her loss, but that doesn’t mean R wants to leave them out.

Lead this into a touch of psychic!Dean and how he has a teeny tiny second sense for what she needs, just like her Dad did. Just enough shine to get by.

R and Dean come downstairs and invite Sam and Beth to their campfire 😀

Or, at the very least, all the psychic happenings in the house echoing between them; if Dean's sharper instincts were as psychically heavy as a shadow falling on grass, then Sam's Static was six feet of snow in an arctic blizzard.

It tingles all the way up to your shoulder when Sam touches you. And that, oh, that was a whole new can of worms. As they get dressed for the snow outside and assemble the s'mores and flaming shots, you try not to head down that train of thought again.

Every time you’ve glanced at Sam these past few weeks, you’d been unable to hide from what you’d sensed there—from what you’d seen in the demon, and what you now knew to be completely and utterly true after reading its mind.

Sam had It. The Gift, the Shining, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it. Not the vague imprint of psychic-ness from loving one or sharing the Impala with one for four years; full-on, unlatched, REDRUM, I-saw-it-before-it-happened psychic abilities. In the weeks you'd had to sit with that revelation, you'd poked carefully at Sam from afar. Obviously, you knew what a fucking psychic felt like. The five-year-old Sam who'd cut Dean's gum out of your hair had not been psychic. Yet this Sam, twenty-two with three-fourths of an ivy league law degree under his belt, was as psychic as a fucking—well. You. He was just as psychic as you.

Without even a sliver of the same control or even understanding of—of what he had, yes, but you were confident that if Sam was pushed, he could reach into your mind just as easily as you could reach into his. There had been a shift, then. At six, having gum cut out of your hair, you had been decidedly less psychic than you were at twenty-four. So Sam had gone through the Proctor Rite Of Passage; some terrible moment had cut him deep, deep enough to pull a new kind of blood to the surface. After Jessica, he had been... yeah.

It was fucking crazy. And yet it also slotted perfectly into some of the weirder things you understood about Sam; about who he was now and the vague, strobing flashes you got of his future. It freaked you the fuck out. Did Sam know? Did anyone know, besides you? Had your Mom recognized that spark in Sam, the same way she'd seen it in you? Had John?

And the plain existence of the Gift in Sam begged the question—why? Had he just happened to drop from the tree as a different kind of apple? Or was this something you could trace back to his mother, the same way it traced back to yours? Had Mary…?

The implications of that took pretty much everything you understood about Sam and Dean’s life, lined it up on the chopping block, and cleaved it in two. Needless to say, thinking about it made you sick. How could you even begin to bring this up to them?

You cursed your abilities with all you had. There were nights when you sat on the bathroom floor, wishing you could dig in with your nails and rip out whatever had put It in your head. Never in a billion fucking years would you have wished It upon anyone else; especially not Sam, good, selfless, wonderful Sam, who already ached so deeply for other people. Seeing their future, too? And even more often, seeing it and being helpless to change it?

He used to cry over squashed spiders as a kid. You'd felt a whole lot more than just spiders die.

…Beside that shuddering horror was another, far more selfish feeling. As scary as the implications could be, when you thought less about the Winchester family and more about your relationship with Sam, you were… excited. Relieved, even.

There were only four people in the entire world that you could share your Gift with. One of them has been six feet under for over a decade. Your Gift was a clingy, possessive creature, too. It was maybe two steps shy of being an eldritch horror. It poked through Dean’s dreams when you slept beside him, sucking them up like cigarette smoke. It breathed down Sam’s neck wherever he went. If you wanted, no one could lie to you—all punchlines and stories were spoiled for you, you knew when people found you annoying or pretty or stupid. If that particular Proctor gene had skipped you, then maybe you’d be able to form relationships with people where you didn’t immediately, intrinsically understand who they were and why. Dean would say, You need a drink. You would know without asking that he meant, You scare the ever-living hell out of me n’ I know I can’t hide it from you. Fucking hell, kid, I wish I could.

You knew you were a freak. The tiny human vessel for the lashing, bubbling, soul-melting, cosmic weight of a star about to bloom into a black hole. Only your mom would ever understand what it felt like to exist on the fringe of time, between the exhaustive influence of the past and the vast, spotty expanse of the future. You were a tool to men like John; an anomaly for men like Bobby; and a responsibility to men like Dean. 

But Sam… Your best friend Sam, he’d always tried to understand. Maybe he’d never fully get it, but the point was that he tried to. You remembered sitting with him on the curb outside your old high school, the concrete thrumming with music from the junior prom you’d both left behind inside.

How either of you had gotten dates was a miracle. You, the class weird-freak-emo punchline, and Sam, on his fourth round being the new kid that year, were two peas in a pod. Your date had never picked you up; Sam’s had escaped with her friends long before their first dance. Neither of you were very broken up about it.

The future had sprawled in front of you that night as clear as could be. You must've sat and talked on the curb for three straight hours, pressed together at the hip with Sam’s blazer around your shivering arms.

He was always beautiful in the boy-next-door kind of way, dimples popping with every good smile and freckles rising out of the too-short sleeves of his button-up. But that night he’d been fucking Helen of Troy, and the roar of the past and future slowed to a halt around him. 

Do you really see the future all the time? Every second? Sam had curiously tilted his head, sending a gleaming swish of chocolatey hair out of his eyes.

Swallowing hard, you’d hesitated, Not every second. But a lot, yes.

Again, the head tilt, then the swish. His gaze was innocent and intrigued. No existential dread, no sweeping sense of fear. Just plain curiosity. Not even morbid curiosity. Sam had asked, What about right now?

Sam’s cologne—oh god, his cologne—was steaming off his borrowed jacket and floating around your head in a wonderful rosy fog. You’d poked at the future. Sometimes things came back, sometimes they didn’t. That night, the future had come back tasting like Sam’s vanilla chapstick and junior prom punch, and your face had gone up in flames just sensing it. He’d waited for an answer. You’d blurted out the plain truth: In a minute or two, you’re gonna kiss me.

This kind of absolute, unshakable certainty about the future had made other hunters’ blood run cold. You’d braced yourself for Sam’s displeasure or worse, his fear. But instead, there were those dimples again, and Sam had the gall to bat his lashes at you and delightedly ask, Really? That’s what the magic eight ball has to say?

His big hand had dropped onto your knee and you’d squeaked out a shrill, Signs point to yes!

Sam loved the stupid magic eight-ball joke. You could feel him smiling about it as he kissed you, kissed you, hand-on-knee, his face tipping down to yours, the shitty school punch staining his lips as the two of you connected. At fifteen and sixteen respectively, this was the first kissing that either of you had ever done. It’d been wetter and warmer than you’d expected, and Sam’s vanilla chapstick had left the slightest print on your mouth, one that your tongue swiped over obsessively for the next month. Your Gift had chased him for weeks after that, silently and invisibly swarming him every time he entered a room.

Back then, your mind had been on the Curse. But now, you thought about what had led to the kiss in the first place. Sam hadn’t kissed you on a night when your Gift had been crammed down deep where it could bother nobody but you. He’d instead chosen the precise moment where your Gift was most raw, one of Its fingers coming down from the sky to press against the pulse of the future. It was small, but at a time in your life when you’d wanted to claw your Gift out with your bare hands, Sam had gotten the smallest glimpse of It and had fallen in love.

You couldn’t help but see this thing inside him, his Static, and feel the exact same way. His powers were twisted and unavoidably demonic, and yet you kind of loved them. It made perfect sense to you. No one really understood you like Sam did. Now, it's clear why.

-

tags: @samssluttybangs @cookiemumster1 @lacilou @cevans-winchester @leigh70 @seraphimluxe @emily-roberts @emme-looou @aloneatpeace @williamstop @ornella0910 @chaoticshepardplaid @dakota-dream @lcvecstiel @goghkiss @spnexploration @stoneyggirl2 @urm0mmmbbg @mulattomoon @poeticsorcery @deansapplepie @rennydenny @babydollfoster @badlandsbrunette @hallecarey1 @pplanetcaravan @notanotherthembo

[silly-boozer]

🧪

New and Improved About ↴

hello you're in my corner of the internet now! you can call me Booze or Boozer. I love all things to do with music, movies, and times/things before i was born. I don't mind any pronouns. Please keep in mind I am a minor who just has too many things and ideas on his mind. Drawing is one of the many hobbies I share on here. I'm not that good at it but it's fun. I do art of the things I'm interested in. If we have the same interests or want to ask a question, don't be afraid to yap away in my ask box! :] I'm always up to answer any questions and find some mutuals!

Please read, more about my tags!

Alt blog: @boozer-club (there is some important stuff there please check it out)

Art blog!: @just-art-junk (all featured art here will now be on a separate account as well!)

My tags are:

#official boozer posts - posts I have made

#my art 🔫 - all my art I post is under this tag

#brody cabinet man - my cabinet man oc & my interpretation of cabinet man universe

#adventures with my cds - I collect CDs as a hobby! I do silly things with them sometimes.

#adventures with lego neil - here

#booze answers - asks I answer

💥 Strawpage of music and movies I love 🐁

I'm deep into many hyperfixations including Re-animator, Lemon Demon and Neil Cicierega, Tally Hall projects, spooky scary movies, CD collecting, arcades and more

Main/special interests include:

Music and movies (literally the majority)

Re-Animator and Jeffrey Combs

Lemon Demon and other projects by Neil

Neil Cicierega in general

New Kids On The Rock

Tally Hall and other projects

Tally Hall's Internet Show

Jurassic Park

Ghostbusters franchise

old technology and games

old music and movies

sci-fi horror

CD and DVD collecting

lifestyle back in the 80s to 2000s

Other hobbies + interests: Camp Here & There, Snoopy from The Peanuts, Homestuck(?), Dr. Malice book, Genloss, horror stuff, ARGS, old technology, old games, drawing, playing piano, playing drums, lego building, rubber duck collecting, movies, warrior cats, and uh i think i said CDs already

(interest strawpage got taken down cuz it's ugly as hell probably going to make a new one soon though)

Permission to scroll through your blog?: Yes! Just be prepared for cringe. I have LOTS of stuff I've posted hidden way below and cool things I've made it would make my day if you checked it out :]

My "DNI" just includes general pricks, other basic DNI criteria, tally shippers, proshippers, gross real people shippers, etc. There will be no hesitation in blocking you.

[get-shiggy-with-it]

Ch. 2

Shigaraki Birthday Celebration! 18+ MINORS DNI

Pairing: Tomura Shigaraki x fem!reader 

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: reader is marked fem cause Tomura is a little sexist and hates you cause you’re a woman, no pronouns, incel!shiggy, collage au/no quirks, tomura is an asshole, gratuitous swearing, like so much, shiggy has a dirty mouth, mentions of shigs being anxious, brief male masturbation, tags will be added for smut in the next two parts

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6

Summary: In which studying is done, unwilling connections are made, and Tomura thinks about the way you smell a totally normal amount. 

AO3 mirror

Taglist: @dillybuggg​ (just shoot me an ask if you want to be tagged!

Tomura hadn’t stopped staring at his phone since he left the apartment. It was second nature by now—head down at a nearly ninety degree angle, hoodie pulled up to hide hair he hadn’t bothered to comb in weeks, and phone out, held just far enough away that he could see the pavement behind the screen. 

He’d found that people tended to naturally avoid him this way and he didn’t have to risk accidentally making eye contact. It was still a bit nerve wracking to venture into buildings he didn’t expressly have to for classes, so he was still hesitant to make the voyage from his apartment to the library.  But he’d made the mistake of mentioning plans to his roommate and the bastard wouldn’t leave him alone about it afterwards until he was practically shoved out with the door locked behind him. 

He was half tempted to make up some excuse last minute and go hide out at the only cafe on campus he could tolerate, but Tomura knew he was just delaying the inevitable. Biting the bullet now would help to not prolong his suffering. 

Your text thread glared up at him in stark white on blue as he pushed past a crowd of students by the library entrance and flashed his ID to the attendant. 

Group Project Bitch:

— hey I got us a room on the third floor, all the way in the back

—text me when you’re here I’ll wave you in, it’s kinda hard to find T-T

                                                                                                     sounds good— 

He shot off a quick text to you that he was hoping on the elevator. The other two guys in the lift may have given him a dirty look for only going up to the third floor, but Tomura sure as hell wasn’t going to risk the physical exertion of stares when just the thought being stuck in a small room alone with you for god knows how long already had him sweating. 

When he stepped out, you were leaned against one of the 90s-green shelves, scrolling aimlessly through your phone. He panicked momentarily, thinking he’d have to get your attention cause just walking up without saying anything would be weird right? 

He wasn’t sure. 

He didn’t do shit like this. 

Thankfully, you looked up at the chime of the lift and waved him over. His red sneakers squeaked as they scuffed the linoleum floors and he already regretted choosing his tighter fitting pair of sweats. The tapered legs that hugged his ankles and thin calves rubbed against his skin and stung the raw patches. 

“Hey, thanks for coming,” you said softly and he nodded, following as you began to weave through the stacks. “Sorry it was short notice, graduation’s coming up so I'm swamped with meetings.”

“It’s fine, I didn’t have anything going on.” 

He cringed internally at the way his voice cracked, trying to keep the usual rasp to a minimum. His roommate said it was from the innumerable hours he spent shouting at his monitor or on discord, which was probably true but to you he was sure he just sounded like a fucking teenager. 

“Cool, I’ve been set up for awhile so feel free to move some stuff,” you talked a bit louder now that you’d both stepped into the study room and shut the door. 

Tomura looked around. You’d snagged one of the nicer ones at least, with the big monitors he could cast his screen onto and those comfy chairs he liked but could never beat anyone too on the lower floors. 

You were right, there was shit all over the big table at the center of the room. Notes and printed out readings with highlights galore and sticky notes littering the pages were scattered all over. What a show off. You probably tossed all this stuff out so he’d think you were actually intelligent or some shit. 

Kicking a pile off of the nearest plush armchair, Tomura took a seat and pulled his laptop out. There was a jack in the middle of the table and you plugged yours in to cast onto the big monitor. 

You made a fucking power point for him. 

This couldn’t be real. 

“So I know I ran some stuff by you in class but essentially I was thinking we make like a simple Twine type thing using the rhetorical argument Swift is making…” 

You started rambling again and Tomura almost immediately tuned you out. His eyes drifted between the rough outline you were flicking through on the board and the laptop you had your nose buried in. 

It was covered in stickers, pretty obviously stereotypical for someone as obsessed with being ‘cool’ as you clearly were. But as he scanned through the various old meme phrases and aesthetic shit, he caught a couple of game references he recognized and a panel cutout from one of his favorite manga. 

He almost fell into your trap for a moment, feeling a rush at the prospect of someone—much less a chick—being into his main hyperfixations. 

But it was quickly crushed under everything his years trolling subreddits had taught him. People like you didn’t actually have interests beyond the attention and dick it got them. Plus that manga was pretty popular anyway, you probably didn’t even read it, just thought the line was funny or made you sound quirky. That had to be why you felt the need to drop it in your first texts. 

“What do you think?” you asked, making good on your new habit of startling the hell out of him. 

Tomura blinked, gaze instinctively turning to you but the blatant way you stared made his mouth turn to sand paper, so he looked resolutely back at the color-coded bullet points on the screen. 

“Look’s fine,” he mumbled. 

The more he glanced over it, the more it actually did look fine. A bit more than fine, really, which pissed him off even more. The little choose-your-own debate style story was not a terrible way to make fucking Whatever Swift interesting and it kinda looked like you’d bothered to google some simple coding which gave him a better idea of what you were looking for. 

It was...good. 

And that so fucking annoying. 

Well, he wasn’t sure if annoying was the right word for it, but the proposal coupled with your apparent lack of disgust at working with him made his face hot and that only ever happened otherwise when his roommate left the dishes out for weeks or when some newb on his server fucked up their raids. 

Then, you had the audacity to plop down in the chair next to him and— 

“You can tell me to fuck off if you want,” you began, shuffling in the chair to cross your legs on the cushion, “but I was hoping you’d be willing to show me how you do some of the coding stuff? I tried on my own, but I have literally no clue what I’m doing.” 

He could smell you again, like the whole fucking health and beauty aisle at the grocery store. When he turned his head a bit to look at you around the curtain of his hair, you were crooked—back against the armrest and facing him. 

“Why do you want to know?” he asked, sounding a bit less rude than he would have liked to. 

You just fucking stared right at him though, didn’t wrinkle your nose at how greasy his roots were or how he was wearing the same hoodies as yesterday. 

“I’ve always been interested in it, but my program is kinda stressful and I don’t have much free time so I never learned,” you offered and for once Tomura found he didn’t feel his skin crawl under your unwavering gaze. 

The dry, cracked area around his eyes burned though as sweat beaded on his forehead and he quickly wiped at his face with a loose sweatshirt sleeve. The garment hung off his shoulders, bought a size too big that he never ended up growing into. 

“What’s your major?” 

He found the words slipped easily from him. It was the quintessential question you asked of anyone in college when you met, but he’d never been interested in the answer before. 

You babbled a bit about your specific area of study and your voice was surprisingly not as infuriating as he remembered it being before. It was softer, he thought, than when you were soapboxing in class about the sexist implications of old as fuck poetry—it had a less grating quality and was almost pleasing to the ear. 

Or Tomura would have said that if he thought you deserved the compliment. 

But, obviously you didn’t. 

So he didn’t. 

He just pretended to care about what you were saying and didn’t hang onto every word at all. Actually he was more enraptured in the way your lips moved when you talked. You used your hands a lot too, but his eyes were ensnared on the way your mouth quirked and dipped, at the occasional flash of your tongue between strong teeth. When he leaned in a bit, he could smell your breath too: fruity gum and the remnants of whatever you were always drinking in that loud as fuck cup. He wondered now what exactly it was, so he could buy it and get a better idea of what you mouth might taste—

Nope. 

No, see this was exactly what he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about. How were you doing this to him? What a fucking slut. 

Tomura steeled his nerves as you started explaining the extracurriculars you did on the side. 

“My roommate freshman year actually started a gaming club and so I’ve gotten more into that over the years,” you explained, pointing at the stickers on your laptop case. 

“Are you talking about The League?” 

“Yeah, I didn’t know if you’d heard of it,” you shrugged.  

He knew of the gaming club on campus. He’d thought about joining when he enrolled but the allure of anonymity online gaming provided was too strong. Plus his discord server didn’t have annoying weekly meetings. 

The thought of you, up late and illuminated by the blue light of a tv screen, tucked away in one of the basement rooms in the media building was...strange. It also prompted an array of new images—you in those fucking cat ear headsets, seated in his lap as he trashed you in Mario Kart which was even stranger. 

Tomura had to physically shake his head to dislodge the thought. 

“Uh, we should probably work on this right?” he cringed at the way his voice cracked compared to your own, smooth tone. 

You should narrate those fucking sleepy time mediation things. His roommate used to hide wireless speakers in his room and blast those when Tomura stayed up too late. It was annoying as shit then, but if it was you talking, he probably wouldn’t have minded so much. 

Or no, no he would definitely mind. 

Yes. It would have been worse if anything. 

“Oh shit, you right. It’s been like two hours.” 

He glanced down at his laptop and saw that it had, indeed, been two hours since he got there. He’d willingly spoken to you for two goddamn hours. It felt like no time had passed at all, but the sun was definitely setting, the overhead fluorescent bulbs taking over as the main light source in the room. 

Weird. 

So you settled back in your chair, typing away like you always did, but the sound wasn’t nearly as frustrating as before. Occasionally, you’d glance over his shoulder and ask questions about what he was working on, but mostly the two of you settled into a comfortable silence. 

This pattern continued for the next few weeks. As the weather warmed, you began to show a bit more skin. He never worked up the nerve to comment on the thick expanse of bare thigh that tapered off nicely into your calf, or the curve of your arms not hidden behind knit sweaters—hell even your fucking shoulders were hard not to look at. 

Maybe all those high school dress codes weren’t actually so full of shit after all. Cause he was definitely distracted by the way your neck swooped into the exposed skin of your shoulder and down your back on more than one occasion.

Did all girls know that? Was it some kind of massive conspiracy to crumble the patriarchy or some crap to go flashing bare shoulders everywhere? 

Regardless if you really were trying to hypnotize him into liking you, Tomura stayed resolutely in his monochrome, long sleeved attire, and if you noticed the behavior you never said a word. 

Never said a word about his allergy ridden skin, peeling lips or scarred throat. Never commented on his terrible posture or said his eyes were creepy. Even when he’d occasionally toss a negative remark your way, you never retaliated maliciously. Just brushed him off with a jovial ‘don’t be a dick’ and a playful, but hard slap to his chest or the back of his head. 

The two of you always met in the same, secluded room on the third floor. You’d talk with him in class sometimes or shoot him texts about random bits of inspiration or a late night game memes, but for the most part, your conversations were confined to that room. He found he preferred the study room ‘you’ best. You weren’t as stiff. There was more of a solidity to you, like he’d seen when you told off that Kai bastard. 

It...grew on him. 

He was irrationally anxious that there would be a time when you couldn’t secure this particular room—with it’s big monitor and comfy chairs and less annoying ‘you’—but he’d been reassured after your third work session. 

Someone had knocked softly at the thick, wooden door and a head of wild, bright pink hair peaked around the crack. 

“Sup bro,” the intruder quipped, as they stepped fully into the room. 

“Hey, Spinner,” you mumbled back, looking up momentarily from the essay portion of your presentation before going back to typing. 

Spinner had seemed to notice him at that point and offered a small wave in his direction. “Oh hey, sorry, thought you were alone,” he said quickly. 

“Nah, this is Tomura,” you said, glancing up again and jerking your thumb in his direction. 

Tomura nodded and tugged at his hoodie strings to stop from scratching under the newcomer’s gaze. He’d gotten used to you, but other people still made him a bit nervous. 

“Nice to meet you,” Spinner had a nice smile, bright and flashy when he spoke. He leaned against the door and crossed his arms, looking around the room. “You got the nice one, huh. How’d you manage that?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” you half closed your laptop and stretched a bit. “Jin was working the front desk, so I’ve just been bribing him with vending machine snacks.” 

“He hasn’t gotten himself fired yet?” Spinner laughed incredulously, but not unkindly. 

“Surprisingly not, but he’s completely corrupt now,” you were picking at the cuticle of your thumb and Tomura fixated on the way the skin split off at the nail. Just like his. “A couple packs of chips and a Monster and I get the most bitchin study room whenever I want.” 

“Damn,” Spinner chuckled again and Tomura really wished that he’d leave already. He was beginning to feel himself fading into the upholstery as the conversation left him in the dust. The divergence of your attention away from him or the project was even more annoying that you were. “Well, are you coming to The League meeting tonight? We’re busting out a Smash tournament.” 

“That’s tonight?” you asked, eyes perking up but sliding subtly in Tomura’s direction. “Sorry, I think Tomura and I are gonna be working on this project for a while longer and I’m kinda burnt out. But next time, yeah?”

Spinner rolled his eyes but nodded and kicked off the wall. “That’s not very sexy of you,” he chided and waved a hand in parting. “Gonna work yourself directly into the fucking grave.” 

“Jokes on you, I welcome death.” 

You buried yourself in the screen again and Tomura actually felt a bit grateful for you ending the conversation before he got too painfully awkward. 

But Spinner stopped before he left, looking Tomura up and down from the frayed strings of his black hoodie to the tips of his worn red sneakers. 

“Nice to meet you, man,” he said with a wide grin. “Feel free to tag along next time if you want, we always need more players.” 

The door clicked softly shut behind him and Tomura relaxed back into the silence.

He did end up tagging along—though he spent most of the time hanging off your heels like a lost puppy—to the next meeting of your gaming club and the one after that. Frustratingly enough, he learned that your interests did also extend into skills as you almost bested him in a few rounds Smash. Your profile, lit only by the flashing screen lights, was even more striking outside of his imagined imitations. 

So much so that it found its way into his head late at night when he was too tired to log onto his server. So much so that it had his cock growing firm and tenting his grey sweats without even the visual aid of his go to porn clips. So much so that sometimes, he felt inclined to do something about the throbbing between his legs. So much so that he thought about the way you picked the skin by your fingers. How it looked like his. How your hand might feel like his but softer. Smoother around the edges. With your sweet voice whispering in his ear, making him whine and pant and spill white ropes of release onto his stomach. 

But it was only because you were hot. 

And you were practically begging for him to jack off to the thought of you with those outfits and liking all the shit he liked and noticing when he shrunk away from conversations or including him in them when he started to feel that awful sense of fading into the background. 

Yeah. 

Everybody jerks it sometimes to their group project partners if their ass is nice enough. 

Right?

[mandoalorian]

Return of the Jedi [Max Lord x gn!Reader]

Summary: You and Alistair are heartbroken when you find out opening week tickets for Return of the Jedi have sold out. So Maxwell calls an old friend and organises a special surprise for his little family.

Warnings: food mention

Word count: 2000>

Author’s note: I received a request to write a Maxwell Lord x neurodivergent!Reader from @smoldjarin . They provided me with so much information in regards to autism, stimming, hyperfixations and more. I had so much joy writing this and I hope you find joy in reading it too. I couldn’t have done this without Melissa. I just hope I done it justice. (PS— I wanted to include Melissa’s love for Star Wars in this. I think we all, as Pedro stans, love Star Wars).

Maxwell wanted to pull his hair out. He had no idea what you and Alistair were yapping on about, but, evidently, it was something you both felt very passionate about. He’d seen you enthusiastic like this before, sure, but this was the first time he’d ever seen Alistair so hyped up. His brown eyes were gleaming as he hopped up and down.

“He literally said ‘I am your father!’ you laughed and Alistair let out a long groan.

“Yeah but he’s the bad guy! And the bad guys always lie,” Alistair explained — and that statement alone was enough to make Maxwell frown. ‘The bad guys always lie’ ... Ironic, to say the least. But, Alistair did make an excellent point. “I don’t trust him.”

You giggled and pulled Alistair into your lap. You’d never found it easy, touching people and being so close to them, but Alistair has grown to be an exception. He was like a son to you.

“Well, I suppose all will be revealed next week.” you told the ebony haired boy, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

You and Alistair got along really well, and Maxwell couldn’t be more grateful, but it was the moments when you both babbled on about Star Wars that had him feeling the most clueless. Granted, he hadn’t found the chance to sit through the movies, but he wanted to because he knew how much it meant to you and his son.

He was also made blissfully aware that the third and final instalment of the trilogy was being released next week, because you and Ali couldn’t stop talking about it. Even in the moments when Alistair wasn’t there, you expressed your excitement to Maxwell. He found it endearing though. He loved it when you talked about your interests and current hyper-fixations. Which is why his heart broke when you read the Friday morning paper and found out all the tickets for opening week were sold out.

Max, despite having no interest in Star Wars, was devastated when he saw the look on your face. He especially didn’t want to be the person who had to break the bad news to Alistair.

“I was really looking forward to it.” You mumbled sadly, your eyes fixated on your cereal. You only had a little left to eat, but truthfully, you’d lost all appetite. These movies and this franchise meant the absolute world to you, and now no doubt you’d have the final movie spoiled for you at work or by the television.

“Oh darling,” Maxwell hummed, wrapping his strong arms around you and holding you tight. You relished in his warmth and found yourself getting lost in the comforting scent of his sweet musk cologne. “I know. And I’m sorry,” the silence between you both broke his heart. “Don’t worry honey, I’ll fix this.”

You weren’t sure how he could possibly fix this. There were simply no more seats available in the movie theatres. He couldn’t just spawn in more seats. What Maxwell Lord did have though, was power, influence and money— and when he put his mind to something, he was sure to get it done. You had never met anyone more determined than him.

He didn’t want to leave you that morning, but duty called and he had to go to work. You tried your hardest to push through the day, ignoring this morning’s revelation. You opted to meet up with a friend at the park, and got ice cream. But when you’re friend told you they’d got tickets, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. You deserved these tickets. It just wasn’t fair.

Maxwell was struggling to focus on his work too. He was running out of bright ideas, but he didn’t just want his statement from this morning to be another empty promise. He actually wanted to fix this. He’d do anything to make you and Alistair happy.

Then it struck him. If his life was a kids cartoon, an illuminated lightbulb would’ve popped above his head. He buzzed his assistant, Raquel, into his office.

“Mr. Lord?” she smiled, walking towards his pine wood desk. Maxwell combed his fingers through his golden locks of hair and looked up at the blonde girl.

“Do I know anyone who is in the uh— the new Star Wars movie?” He inquired.

Raquel was expecting some question about the latest oil numbers, or a request for more supplements — so to say she was taking aback by her boss’ query was an understatement.

She thought for a moment. “Well, Harrison Ford has been a long time investor for Black Gold. He attended last year’s charity gala. Do you remember?”

Of course Maxwell remembered. How could one forget about being in the presence of Hollywood A-Lister Harrison Ford? “Harrison’s in Star Wars?” Maxwell quizzed, trying to hide his piqued curiosity. “Bring me his number. I have to make a call.”

———

Maxwell was so excited to get home and share the good news with you and Alistair. You greeted him just as you normally did, with a loving embrace and a gentle kiss.

“How was your day sweetheart?” your boyfriend asked, smoothing out your hair.

You shrugged. “Fine I s’pose,” you told him. “How was work?”

Maxwell’s grin only grew. “Bring Alistair in.” he beamed.

You called for the boy who had been playing with his action figures in his bedroom. His mom had dropped him off about an hour before Maxwell got home. You and Ali snuggled into each other on the crushed velveteen sofa as Maxwell paced backwards and forwards. It wasn’t nervous pacing though, he was bubbling with anticipation.

“I hope you’re all excited for tomorrow night,” Maxwell began, before flashing three pristine Return of the Jedi tickets before yours and Alistair’s eyes. “Because I met with my good friend Han Solo for lunch and he has given us access to a private screening on Sunday night. So we get to see the movie before the rest of the world.”

You felt like you were in a dream. He’d done it. He’d actually fixed it. You didn’t know how and you knew better than to question him, but it didn’t matter because he somehow managed to fix this and it was all to you and Alistair. You’d found it so hard to find someone who loved you for you, who didn’t mind your stims and who encouraged your hyperfixations. But Maxwell was that man and you couldn’t believe how lucky you had gotten.

Alistair bounced up and jumped on his dad, almost knocking him over in the process. Maxwell wrapped his arms around the six year old and picked him up.

“Daddy! Thank you thank you thank you!” he squealed, unable to contain his ecstatic grin. “I had no idea you were friends with Han Solo!”

Maxwell smiled. “Oh yeah, me and Han go way back. I used to co pilot with him on the—“ Maxwell paused for a second as he tried to recall what Harrison told him. He had to get this right. “—Millennium Falcon?”

Both yours and Alistair’s jaw dropped. Gods, he was good at this. Maxwell may have been a brilliant businessman but he was an even better father.

“Does that mean you know Luke and Leia too?” Alistair asked.

“Oh yes.” Maxwell nodded, despite having no idea who Luke and Leia were.

“And Chewbacca?”

Chewbacca? Maxwell thought. What kind of name was that? Never the less he smiled and nodded. “Absolutely.”

“And Artoo and Threepio?”

Maxwell blinked. “Yep.” he replied through gritted teeth.

“Wow daddy,” Alistair hummed, snuggling into his dad’s chest. “I’m so excited.”

Maxwell dropped Alistair the ground and kneeled to his level. “You should put on your jammies and have an early night. That way, tomorrow will come around quicker.”

“Okay!” Alistair agreed enthusiastically before running back into his bedroom.

“And remember Ali!” Maxwell called. He cleared his throat and pointed his finger. “I am your father.”

That was it. That was the last straw. You’d tried your hardest to hold back your laughter as Max humoured his son, but seeing your boyfriend do a Darth Vader impression was something else.

Max sighed and sat down next to you, pulling your body into his lap. “I love you so much, my dear.”

You grinned and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I love you too. I can’t believe you did all of this.” you revealed.

“I always keep my promises.” he replied with the most genuine smile.

———

The movie was a success, and even Maxwell enjoyed it, which was very unexpected.

“I can’t believe Darth Vader was telling the truth,” Alistair sighed, exasperated. It had been a long day for sure, and his cheeks were still rosy with excitement. “I’m so glad Darth Vader isn’t my dad.”

Maxwell tutted.

“But he turned good in the end,” You smiled, taking Ali’s hand. “He saw what truly mattered. He had to save his son.”

Yeah, the parallels between Vader and Luke and Maxwell and Alistair were interesting to say the least.

“Daddy, who was your favourite character?” Alistair asked.

Maxwell thought for a moment. “I liked that guy in the green armour, he was cool. He sorta reminds me of, well, me.”

“Boba Fett?” Alistair quirked an eyebrow. “Oh daddy, no one is as cool as Boba Fett.”

Maxwell feigned a gasp. “Not even your old

man?”

Alistair giggled and rolled his eyes. “I liked the Ewok!” he announced and then tugged on your hand. “Who did you like?”

“I like Leia,” you beamed. “She’s strong and beautiful...”

“Just like you.” Maxwell whispered, brushing his

lips against yours.

The night came to an end and you couldn’t have been happier. As you lay in bed, you thanked Maxwell for all he had done. He was truly the best boyfriend in the world. He loved you so much, and he swore in that moment, as you fell asleep in his arms, that the next promise he’d make would be a promise to himself.

He was going to marry you.

———

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[incorrectdmp]

Blog Maintenance / Lack of Posting

HI so i kinda put this all in the tags of one of Drift's submissions today but i wanna actually kinda give a proper update of how i plan to go forward with this blog as DMP is coming to a close. a lil bit of this addresses something that happened last episode so HERE is your spoiler warning NOW

Okay so first things first, with Juniper's new name I am going to be going back to all the Junior tags and ADDING juniper to them. Originally i was gonna replace everything including the actual name in the quotes but bro told me not to haha. it's... a lot of maintenance and Juniper's arc is more about trying to find an identity for himself rather than distancing himself from an old name ie Charlie. going forward all quotes not explicitly pre-void will be labelled as Juniper and tagged with all three juniper/junior tags. the one person who submitted me a Juniper quote on anon, i haven't forgotten about your post. I've held onto it for a bit bc i didnt wanna have another post to deal with the name change tag so soon to the episode happening haha

Second, out of context spoilers is coming... eventually. I've had to put my regular post-episode notes on hold until i'm far enough along in my finale work i'm COMFORTABLE taking a likely 2 day venture into a task that's both time consuming and physically taxxing, and so i'm planning on rewatching the episode some time today or tomorrow to do a run for anything in OOC spoilers i wanna add before posting them

Third, I'm.... REAL sorry i haven't been posting a lot on this blog. there's a lot of reasons for that. obviously as most of y'all know as I am an official artist for DMP now i'm INCREDIBLY busy with the finale, and even though putting quotes from the backlog onto the blog or on a queue isn't terribly hard or time consuming it's also something that just slips my mind a lot. also i have a lot of anxiety surrounding my backlog getting too short, even though it's not THAT bad right now. plus, considering I know the ending of the show and a ton of my quotes have BEEN in the backlog for SOOOO long some of them may be outdated in terms of dynamics and such, and I'm not sure how many of them i'm ACTUALLY willing to post because i haven't combed through them in a while. plus a lot of the older ones just aren't as funny to me. once DMP is done and i still have the hyperfixation brainrot i may try to maintain this blog a little more until i at LEAST get through all my backlog quotes. once those are done I'll probably just post quotes as i see fit whenever i find them, instead of actively trying to maintain a backlog. i haven't had time to actively go hunting for new quotes in a long time, so that stuff will come once dmp is done, again. I wanna keep the blog running for at least a bit after DMP is done as a way to help everyone including myself with going content cold turkey, and as i'll NOT be swamped in work it'll be a good time to TRY and find new material. plus i wont have to worry about anything with dynamics changing.

as for quotes running as we lead up to the finale? i'm gonna try posting around every week or so, maybe in 5 quote batches? i'm not sure. again, lots of anxiety surrounding the shrinking backlog combined with So Much Work that i make no promises but i DO wanna at least treat yall as we enter one last mini hiatus as we're working hard behind the scenes to give yall the finale you DESERVE

[savrenim]

tropesssss

this got long so I am putting it under a cut; all of my additions will be in italics

Hi, I’m the tvtropes anon who is also the recent long ifmlam question anon. I‘m very happy you like the page! I made it because I wanted people to enjoy it so it’s great to know someone does. I am very actively updating that page. I intend to comb every chapter for tropes and by then I should gotten most stuff that I’m capable of getting, so I’ll message you. “Most stuff” because I bet after all the chapters I’ll realize something in hindsight or learn a new trope that definitely applied to the fic and go back and add it, but that’s probably going to cause way fewer additions than when I’m actively rereading the fic in search of tropes. “That I’m capable of getting” because I’m one person and am capable of straight-up missing things, or of noticing things but not knowing it’s a trope or that it has a trope on TVTropes. Other people are likely to pick up on stuff I missed or know tropes I don’t. Oh! I spent awhile trying to find a trope for touch-activated powers and only found very specific powers like the Midas Touch instead of a trope for touch powers in general. If that trope exists I definitely missed it and there’s room for someone to add it. “Adding back stuff the original cut” needs to be its own trope I s2g. The closest standalone trope I found was Adaptation Expansion, which can be plain old additions the original didn’t have as well, it’s not exclusive to “the original cut this and now the adaptation put it back in” which is what I so desperately want. So until then, it’s an Adapted Out inversion… I also have lots of thoughts about Adapted Out and its inversion. There’s lots of different “types” I identified when I was crawling the Hamilton musical trope page for people the musical adapted out that the fic put back in. I might actually get to separate them by these “types” because the ifmlam Adapted Out section is getting hella long. It’s literally just turning into “a list of every historical person who wasn’t a full character in the musical” lol. Anyways, the “types” 1) Stuff in the source material literally does not exist in the adaptation. In the original book, Character A is 18 in the year 2000 and has 2 loving parents and 7 siblings. In the film adaptation, Character A is 18 in the year 2000 and has 2 loving parents and the truthful line “I’m an only child.” 2) Stuff in the source material doesn’t get included, but there’s no proof it doesn’t exist in the adaptation. The theatre adaptation doesn’t show or mention Character A’s parents, but they never say anything like “I never knew my parents.” 3) Stuff in the source material ultimately doesn’t get included in the adaptation (could be type 1 or 2), but it did get included in drafts of the adaptation/the adaptation creators really tried to include it but never found space for it so it never reached the drafts. Also noticed “types” for adding stuff back when I was working on the fic page. I’m wondering if Adapted Out inversion isn’t the right thing to describe some of these? This list is also going to include half-adding stuff back because it wasn’t 100% removed, which makes me wonder if everything I put under Adapted Out is being used correctly… maybe the characters not 100% removed are actually just an Adaptation Distillation and the readdition is an Expansion? I’ll look into it. But I digress. 1) Character gets a pretty vague reference in the adaptation’s adaptation, one that isn’t a crystal-clear identification of who exactly is being referenced. For example, the theatre adaptation of the film has Character A refer to “my siblings.” That means at least 2 siblings are included, but we have no clue if this means all 7 are included or not. Or the theatre adaptation of the film shows Character A dancing with someone at the ball. The original book had Character A dance with several characters at the same ball. It’s probably one of those characters, but we have no clue exactly which one. 2) Character gets a clear reference in the adaptation of the adaptation. The theatre adaptation of the film also has Character A refer to “my sister, the pilot” and the

original book has only one sister of Character A that is a pilot. It also has Character A buy baseball tickets with someone with pink hair, and the original book has only one character who buys baseball tickets with Character A and has pink hair. 3) Character is referenced/addressed by name or role in the adaptation of the adaptation. 4) Character appears in the adaptation of the adaptation. Mix and match. I’ve noticed a lot of vaguely referenced characters upgrading to clear references (a 1 situation upgrades to a 2), and clearly referenced characters who were only mentioned getting clear references and mentions again but also appearances (a 2 and 3 situation upgrades to a 2, 3, and 4). Now I realize if you start with a 2 and one-of-3-or-4 situation and upgrade to a 2 and both-3-and-4 situation, you weren’t wholly Adapted Out of the story, you just get your role expanded. I’m pretty sure that’s Adaptation Expansion instead and I’ll have to fix that (I just checked the Adaptation Expansion page again and it directly mentioned reintroducing darker elements of fairy tales back in, so adding back stuff that already existed counts too. It’s not just for making up new stuff to expand on what existed the way I thought). But I’m really not sure if going from a 1 to a 2 is Expansion or inverting Adapted Out. Maybe it’s a different trope entirely. Ditto with being unsure for going from a 1 and one-of-3-or-4 situation to a 1 and both-3-and-4. And for swapping which of 3 or 4 you have, but staying a one-of-3-and-4 situation. Also not that sure where to draw the lines. When does it stop being “yeah Hamilton Adapted this Out and you put it back in, it’s an Adapted Out inversion” and start being “this was way too far removed from/insignificant to the musical’s story to be considered Adapted Out of it, so putting this true historical thing in this fic is no longer Adapted Out”? (It’d definitely be Shown Their Work but I think there’s a more specific trope for it?) Like, is the incident where he talked to John Witherspoon is clearly referenced in a musical line without mentioning Witherspoon himself (and later he’d evacuate the college before the soldiers got near it), is that significant enough a line and significant a role in Hamilton’s life to make the guy Adapted Out and thus making it an Adapted Out inversion when you put him back in? If he’s not significant enough, Sally gets the same line count in the musical (“everyone who loves me has died”) that could make one think of her and how she’s not here, and gets around the same mentions in the fic. Is her “you actually don’t exist” version of not appearing as opposed to Witherspoon’s “we’re not mentioning you but you probably do exist” enough to make her count as Adapted Out in the musical and to thus make her inclusion an inversion of that trope in the fic? Troping this fic is probably my new hyperfixation. Why couldn’t it be math, I literally have a math class whose work I’m neglecting to trope this fic lmao kill me Oh one more thing I am worried the Round 2 musical will fly off into the tumblr namechange void someday. I know I have a copy, from when I could actually message you on tumblr and asked you permission to back up some tumblr posts and you said yes. So I thought of instead of asking you to put it somewhere else, I could get it backed up with that web.archive.org thing or the wayback machine or whatever, maybe those are the same things, in order to be able to link to your stuff somewhere other than tumblr and have it still be clearly yours (my current backup is a Google Doc full of copy/pastes from tumblr because I didn’t think of better options when I did that. If I was inclined to lie, I could very easily just… change it and claim it’s still a copy/paste from you). But then I realized it’s probably better for people to go to your actual pages to give you the traffic instead of the wayback machine or whatever. I don’t remember if you finished songs for the round 2 musical or if it was just a general outline, but this is a request/suggestion (not a demand) to have you

put that on ao3 too instead of only on tumblr? Again, thanks for writing it and for responding to me about it.

hi anon! thank you very very much and it is very cool to see how excited you are about getting all the tropes down! I'll be honest, I hadn't even heard of adapting in or adapting out or any of the trope inversion terminology or downplayed or just. all the lexicon that tvtropes uses, so I am not going to be useful in terms of you making those calls, but I both trust your judgement as well as the glory of a crowdedited thing is that the crowd will eventually reach consensus, hopefully!

one correction, though, re his sister Sally: whenever Wait For It is supposed to have been sung, which I'm assuming you're referencing, it is definitely before the late 1790s as the Reynolds Pamphlet hasn't gone down yet, and Sarah (Sally being a nickname) Burr-> Reeve died in 1797. so the musical line could only have been a reference to that specifically if they were ignoring timelines, which, to be fair, they do quite a lot (the 'first murder trial' bit from the end of Non-Stop actually happened in 1800.)

as for the round 2 musical, I do not have any plans of posting it on ao3, or really anywhere else besides tumblr. I do not post things to my ao3 that are not intended for and thus edited for my ao3. quite frankly, I barely intended to post 'musical, round 3' to ao3; it just got too long to make a reasonable tumblr post and I'd written a lot of active lyrics enough for it to become worthwhile to add that extra polish and throw it up as a fic. round 2 was mostly a thought experiment, I have no more written than the single tumblr post I wrote about it, I plan to write no more than that post, and I do not plan to bring it up to my ao3 standards and will not be posting it on ao3.

I'm honestly not too worried about traffic for ifmlam, and do not mind a link to wayback machine, or cross-posting the post to another website. honestly I don't really care if you put it up on ao3 yourself; I think someone else did it for they had a version of 'musical, round 2', and it was really cool and fell under the general 'fanworks of ifmlam' category. so if you care deeply about things being on ao3 you can post it yourself with a note of it was copy-pasted from the author's tumblr, I don't really care. however, if you're worried about preserving the proof of canoninity, I have no plans of changing my tumblr url mostly because I did so once and it was deeply inconvenient to try to go back and change it in all of my fic, but also tumblr might go down, who knows, wayback machine may very well be safer. also, like. these days I have moved on to enough other different work between both being interested and active in different fandoms as well as spending most of my time writing original work that it feels kind of like false advertising to direct people to my blog specifically for the sake of ifmlam with the expectation of more ifmlam content. when ifmlam gets new content, it'll be on ao3, and there really isn't a lot of related content or fandom blogging on this blog anymore, and given that I link to my blog in every chapter, I figure the people who want to look at my other writing and/or actually support me via ko-fi or patreon have ample chance to. I'm not really concerned about whether or not I'll lose audience because the tvtropes page linked to wayback machine instead of my actual blog if that's what you decide to go with.

[naradreamscape]

Why did the lost media wiki go from a wiki about, well, lost media, to including deleted videos by youtuber gamerboy666 and the playhouse disney show out of the box

I think it’s due largely in part to how many lost media archivists have ADHD or autism. A big part of autism is hyperfixations and special interests...if you find something you’re interested in, you wind up going through spells of needing to consume Everything related to that subject. If you can’t find something, then it’s the most frustrating thing in the world. Couple that with the fact that a lot of newer lost media archivists are kids, who tend to gravitate towards older media they can’t quite remember and are becoming nostalgic for. I remember when I was 13-14, and I was especially into collecting anything related to the Disney Afternoon programming block that I could get my hands on.

The problem comes from how this portion of the community is now larger than the older, more serious portion. In the earlier days of the community, the majority of contributors were older autistic people with VHS tape collections; to this day, they comb through old television archives and categorize old promos, commercials, and interstitial production logos. There was still a strong feeling of nostalgia in what they did, but with a greater deal of difficulty...programming records, credits, etc. were only kept on paper before the internet age, so these people would be searching through ancient TV Guides to find even the slightest mention of a television show or movie ever existing or airing. Plus, sometimes one would have to dig through hundreds of hours of videotaped television, containing anything ranging from rare news footage to TV pilots that were never rerun. Using a VCR or film projector (and especially converting these to digital format) isn’t common knowledge anymore. Plus, a person might be looking for one title, but they’re doing so in this vast sea of ephemeral data, so who knows what else you might find and become interested in? In the pre-”everything on the internet lasts forever” age, it was hard to not have your interests broaden. You were finding records of lost media that didn’t exist before you entered the game.

Short answer: The modern ease in media logging and backups has left a lot of new lost media enthusiasts with not a lot of new ground to break, so they get re-interested in their childhood special interests instead of venturing into the dusty wild terrain of media made before the internet existed

[kirinda-ondo]

Rant/tell me about Cobalt and why u love him so much??

Ok so this is probably going to get very long, and very, very cheesy, and I hope y’all are ready for this.

Cobalt is a very special character to me and is absolutely my favorite character of all time, from anything in the history of ever. It doesn’t matter what other fandom I’m hyperfixated on or what character I’m saying is my son at the moment, if you bring him up at any time, in any context I will be there.

So you’re probably wondering how I got here.

Once upon a time, it was 2009 and I was a young weeaboo, constantly absorbing everything anime or manga I could. I had just come out from the Astro Boy movie, and I immediately wanted to watch the source material. I’d already seen a bit of it on adult swim when they were running an Astro Boy marathon, but I had to go to bed at 11:30 then so I didn’t get to see much. So this time, I went to youtube and I found all the (dubbed) episodes of the 60s series. (Sadly you can’t find them all there anymore and it’s a crying shame).

I basically marathoned them, but over in the sidebar where the recommendations were, I kept seeing the thumbnail for part 2 or 3 (this was back when youtube only let you post 10 minute videos and you had to watch anime in 3 parts) of the episode “Brother Jetto.” You could plainly see him, and so it was clear this was supposed to be Astro’s brother. I thought it was neat that Astro even had a brother, as I’d only known about Uran before. I wanted to know more, but I promised myself I wouldn’t skip ahead. Though it was very tempting at times, I stuck to my guns and watched all 83 episodes up to that point.

However, it was not actually love at first sight. When I finally got to this episode 84, I wasn’t really impressed. “Wow, he’s kind of annoying, what’s the point?” I had thought like a fool, but I was still willing to accept him as part of the canon, as I figured I’d be seeing a lot more of him now that he had been introduced. After all, that’s what they did with Uran! But then…. that pretty much didn’t happen at all, which I thought was kind of weird. After all, why introduce a new sibling if he’s not going to show up again?

But then I got to the episode “A Deep, Deep Secret” about 6 episodes later, and I found myself a little relieved that he wasn’t completely canned. Upon watching that episode, I’d found that he’d started to grow on me a bit, but he still wasn’t my favorite. However, the trend of him being gone for several episodes only to show up once in a blue moon continued until I’d run out of episodes. I moved on to the 80s series next (and then the 2003 series) having learned that Cobalt had been replaced by Atlas as Astro’s brother. While I enjoyed those series (the 80s one a bit moreso than the 2003 one), I found myself kind of missing Astro’s dingus brother that had barely seemed to get a chance. After marathoning all the series (at the time), I started doing some googling and found out he had a slightly better run in the undubbed Japanese episodes (which was also how I discovered AB-O! Hi fandom!) and I’d learned a lot more about him. But the most important thing I’d learned was that I was in fact very emotionally invested in this character now and I was in deep.

Mind you at this time the undubbed Japanese episodes were nearly impossible to find without purchasing the complete DVD set and a player that could play them (on account of the fact that the set was region locked from western DVD players) so for years I sat wondering more about what those Japanese episodes were like, as the forums only had plot summaries with a handful of screencaps to go off of. Nowadays you can watch all the undubbed (and sadly unsubbed) episodes here but 13 year old me did not have the knowledge to do foreign language googling at the time.

But still, my Cobalt-loving heart wanted more, so I scoured the English speaking internet for whatever I could find, official or fanmade. Official content was virtually nonexistent, and the amount of fanmade content, I could count on one hand. The general fan consensus at the time seemed to be “Who the hell is Cobalt” or “Eh, whatever,” which was a far cry from how it is now. But being horribly deprived back then, I did the only thing I could: I combed through the dub for every episode he was in, coming up with a whopping total of…..four (well technically five but in that one he’s literally only in the last five seconds with no animation or lines), and I watched them religiously. I could pretty much quote Cobalt’s debut episode by heart. (For the record I can no longer do this to the extent I used to, but should the opportunity arise, I can still quote large chunks of it).

As I did this and learned more about him in my desperate googling, I started developing jokes for what would become my first silly comics, for which I am known in this fandom for. The art and writing for these was….. painful, to say the least, so I don’t even like to think about it, but as I’d already had a decently sized following from drawing silly (read: bad) Sonic comics, they caught on decently well, and I’d even managed to drag my friend and son down with me into Cobalt Hell™. Together, we made a group for Cobalt fans on deviantart (which is still up, but I no longer run it, as I deactivated the account that modded it without transferring ownership, so now it’s likely a wild west hellscape that I’m a little scared to look at).

This seemed to help do the trick though, as Cobalt fans were slowly coming out of the woodwork and appreciating this good boy. On and off I’d spread my yelling about Cobalt (and my silly drawings) to different platforms like the Astro Boy forums and tumblr, and even as I got into different things, after awhile, things kinda grew without me. Now I’m not gonna be out here claiming I built this city myself with my own two hands, as a lot of people got dragged into this hell of their own accord, but I do like to think my, umm….passion at least helped generate some interest, and I can’t help but be proud of how far this fandom has come from “Who the hell is Cobalt” to “Look at this good boy, I love him” and literally all the other Cobalt fans I’ve met have been the coolest people (in general, not just because of their good taste).

I think what really changed my life though was when AprilSeven, a mod on the Astro Boy forum and also probably the original Cobalt fan, as she’d seen the 60s version back when it was originally airing, finally got a hold of the undubbed Japanese episodes, and graciously allowed me and a few of the other big-name Cobalt fans get in on that action, and boy howdy, the screenshots and plot summaries really did not do these episodes justice (at least in terms of Cobalt content). My understanding of him as a character expanded like tenfold, and my appreciation of him expanded even more than that.

…Which brings me into a nice segue in which I shift more into just exactly why I like Cobalt so much. Yes, there’s more. I warned y'all, this was gonna be a Pandora’s Box that could not be closed once it was opened.

I honestly just find him a joy to watch. A lot of what made him grow on me was just how funny he is. I’m a sucker for comic relief characters in general, and he has a personality that lends itself to comedy. In the anime version, he’s literally introduced right out the gate as being kind of a dingus. He’s naive, he’s way too trusting of obviously suspicious people, he’s easily confused, he’s easily distracted, he’s a klutz, and he just… regularly destroys the laws of physics and/or the fourth wall just because. Sometimes he also gets weird ideas in his head to do things that could have been done a completely different, easier way and weirdly enough, it actually kind of winds up working? It’s so fun to watch him approach problems because he’s just… so far out there sometimes.

But beyond being absolutely weird and hilarious, he’s just a really sweet kid. He doesn’t like to fight, he wants to make friends with everyone and everything, he will drop literally anything he’s doing, no matter how important it is, to help someone in need, he’s good with babies and small children and puppies (sometimes), he would fight (and sacrifice himself) for his family, and just means well even if he tends to bungle things up and make them worse sometimes. Honestly, and this is gonna sound dumb, but he helped me be a better person. I used to be an absolute asshole when I was younger, but once I’d gotten into Cobalt Hell™, I was like “I wanna be that sweet and good (but with a better sense of stranger danger)” and I made that effort and did that shit.

That being said though, he’s not perfect, and I wouldn’t want him to be. His flaws, though they kind of give him the short end of the stick in life, are a lot of why I find him so endearing. All the naivety and confusion and general lack of coordination I mentioned before aside, he’s honestly just really relatable. He’ll say jokes so bad that Uran wants to punch him, he’ll opt out of the plot because he doesn’t want to get out of bed, he’ll fight with his siblings over silly petty things, he’ll get frustrated if he tries something and it doesn’t go his way, he’ll absolutely partake in his siblings’ mischief (if not start it sometimes), and just so much more. He just feels like a kid you would know (or maybe a kid that you were at one point) and I really appreciate that about him.

Unfortunately, the canon was not kind to Cobalt, and I think a lot of that comes from Osamu Tezuka just… not knowing what to do with him after making him? Like in the manga, he was just kind of created as a really rushed contingency plan because they thought Astro was missing. Sure, he was taken in as part of the family afterward, but not many appearances later, he was killed off in a firey explosion… Until Tezuka decided to change his mind and let him live in the end. His grave’s still there though. He gets to see it. I know it’s a framing device to explain the circumstances of Cobalt’s retconned death but it’s kind of fucked up to let a boy see his own grave..

Even being brought back, Cobalt didn’t get to do very much. He’d get some good scenes with Uran, but a lot of the time, he was sort of just relegated to filling up space in the background, provided he actually survived til the end of the chapter. When he wasn’t getting forgotten by the plot and thusly zapped out of existence, he would wind up sacrificing himself in some way that wouldn’t allow him to continue to take part in the plot anymore (be it parts, energy, etc.) The most painfully egregious example of this is in the chapter “Youth Gas.” Astro and Cobalt are convinced to fight each other to the “death.” They’re not really dead, but Ochanomizu says they are and can’t be repaired. At first, there’s mourning for “two of the world’s greatest robots,” but then we see a funeral service in which only Astro’s body is shown and his parents are only mourning him, completely forgetting Cobalt exists. He’s never seen again for the rest of the chapter. Now I would assume this is just a writing mistake, but it really does make it look like Cobalt’s own parents wouldn’t even bat an eye if he died, so there’s that.

The anime isn’t quite as horrible, and it is kind enough to give Cobalt a more prominent role once he finally shows up (even getting a handful of focus episodes!), but he doesn’t go unscathed either. In this version, he has the misfortune of being created by Dr. Umataro “Father of the Year” Tenma before Astro was made and was scrapped because, to quote dub!Ochan, “his electronic brain wasn’t as perfect as Dr. [Tenma] wanted.” (read: he thought Cobalt was a dumbass). Cobalt is eventually found and brought into the family, but because he still winds up not being relevant to the plot a lot of the time, he is once again zapped out of the existence and looks like a victim of child neglect. As a result, he gets left out of family vacations and holidays, even in favor of Chi-tan, who is usually even higher on the scale of irrelevant Astro Boy characters. Unlike Astro, Cobalt doesn’t have any consistent friends to even remotely justify what he could possibly be doing offscreen by himself, so it just kind of implies a very sad and lonely existence in-universe.

And of course, the final, meta blow that literally every fan of Cobalt is still despairing about to this day: basically being yeeted out of the canon. After the 60s series, he disappeared off the face of the earth until 2015 when some lovely soul decided to bring him back for Peeping Life TV: Season 1?? (The question marks are part of the title). He’d be referenced again a couple years later in Atom: The Beginning, and will be here for the game Eshigami no Kizuna sometime in 2019 as a… moe anime girl. That’s a little weird, but I’m hoping these sorts of weird appearances will mean a trend toward putting him back in the canon (and hopefully being treated better).

It just hurts my heart to see such a good character get treated like this by canon. He deserves way better and it just seems really clear to me that Tezuka didn’t really know what to do with him. I feel like he has a lot of potential as a character, though. Regardless of what origin you pick for him, Cobalt is essentially existing as a worse version of Astro. I feel like you could have some good character development regarding how he would feel about himself in relation to Astro in sort of a parallel to how Astro might feel about himself in relation to Tobio, the person he was based off of. You could go some neat places with these sort of questions about identity and expectations, I think. Or if you want to just do something funny because your character arcs are getting too real now, you can just let Cobalt do some silly shit. He’s a versatile character!

I’ve done all this rambling and now I’m not really sure how to wrap all this up, so umm

Cobalt is a good boy and deserves better, please hire me Tezuka Productions, and thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[nacsygen]

after way too long, i updated my profile pic and bio (sorry danny, but ddyk was like...five hyperfixations ago).  and yeah, there’s some uh, there’s some news. turns out i’m a boy now! well, okay, yeah, i’ve always been a boy, and yeah, i’ve been identifying as bi-gender for like....uh five years now? but i came to some realizations that all started out as researching grunge and alternative for a story (my new profile is eddie vedder at pinkpop festival in 1992, which seeing that performance was one of the things that made me...Realize some Things about manhood and masculinity and what i wanted to be and what i could be, along with some Real Bad Dysphoria set to the soundtrack of “down in a hole” by alice in chains). i’m afab and a boy.  that’s what i know right now. i’m not sure how that’s all going to turn out, but that’s where i am.  i’m a baby trans.  this has been developing for a couple weeks since i kinda came out to myself, and for, well, most of my life before that, too, though it took me a long time to fully realize.  (cis people don’t think often about their own complex relationship to gender for literally over a decade, nacs.) i came out on facebook, which bc i’m old and technology-resistant remains my predominant social media for people i know irl, friends and family, to overwhelming support.  i’m exploring a bunch of stuff right now and my identity’s more in flux than i think it’s ever been since i was a teenager angsting (unnecessarily then and now) about coming out to my mom. i think part of why i haven’t wanted to admit like, no, i’m not bi-gender, i’m not genderfluid, i’m a boy, is because i was afraid it would increase dysphoria.  which, yeah, it kinda has, but i’ve also for the first time experienced gender euphoria.  specifically for a couple things: - a little backstory, my older brother and i, despite being adults now with respectable careers, don’t see each other often these days but always indulge in a nod to our old babytalk when we do - “sissa” and “brubba”.  (this is especially a thing he’s kept going bc he’s a sentimental sweetheart - he literally taught me to read when he was still just past a toddler himself).  it truly always felt more like i was his little brother than his little sister when we were growing up, as inseparable as twins, then me always tagging along and wanting to be one of the boys when we got older.  but yeah, when i realized a couple weeks ago that me being a boy would mean instead of “sissa” and “brubba” it would be “lil brubba and big brubba”, i had what i can only express as a firework of endorphins explode in my brain.  to be his little brother instead of his little sister filled me with almost inexpressible joy, and even better, when i expressed that idea to him, he assured me that even if i turned out to be his lil brubba instead of his lil sissa, i was still the same person to him and he’d love me all the same.  i think that truly marks the first time i’ve experienced pure gender euphoria. - the same day or the next day that i realized “holy shit, i’m a dude.  i’m a dude! i’m A BOY! I AM TRANS!” - and not a one of you fuckers had better take this out of context or as shallow, but i’ve literally my entire life had male rock stars with long hair from across the decades as my hair goals.  my long hair has never signified to me femininity - it signifies rock and roll, and i’m proud of it as such. i’ve literally gone to barbers and said “give me ‘70s rock and roll, give me roger daltrey, give me robert plant.  i want it big and retro and out of style.” anyway, my hair’s pretty great, and before my shower that same day or the next i was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, going through the process of combing and then brushing my hair before showering (bc that’s what you learn to do when you have a Lot of curly hair), and i was just.  so happy to look at myself in the mirror and see myself.  not a kinda homely/average and unhappy girl, but a boy - a pretty boy, a beautiful boy, a happy boy.  with GREAT hair.

this isn’t as succinct as i’d have liked it to be.  but then, whose understanding of gender when they first really start to figure it out is? (cis people, nacs. cis people. which you’re not.)

[catdaggers]

getting ahold of all 26 gb of Heroes bc god help me if i cant find a new hyperfixation, ill comb through my old ones