#it also feels weirdly easier to rant to a stranger than a loved one. it's kinda why therapists exist y'know?

[shslpunkartist99]

Here that part 2 before I forget lololol

Tsuri comfort Morgana (it makes sense just hold on)

Tsuri didn't respond when Morgana yelled about their internal struggle with thoughts about their father. He didn't try to calm them down. He didn't try to pretend that everything was okay. Saying things like "It's going to be okay" or "just don't think about him" were cop-out answers that never helped anyone with this kind of problem. He sat there and listened. He let Morgana scream and curse, and he'd let them cry too, if they weren't trying so hard not to let the tears fall.

Only when Morgana went silent (other than exhausted breaths) did Tsuri pull the other closer for a hug, firmly yet comfortly holding onto their head, similar to how he would hold Leroy after he had a panic attack.

Morgana stiffened, but they didn't pull back from the hold. Yelling about personal shit like this to someone who was just a friend.. they were probably annoying Tsuri with this. But it wasn't something they wanted to bother his other friends or family with. This is something they should've gotten over already. Over 10 years, and they still struggle with this??

".. I'm so fuckin' weak.. I hate being weak, I hate it so much.."

"You're not weak."

Tsuri's cold tone tensed Morgana up even more. "You already know why you think about him and his approval." He continued. "Things that don't make sense and don't appear to have an answer drive people the most crazy. It's infuriating. I understand that kind of trauma will always affect a person even years after it happens, because there's no true resolution, especially if by your parent. Unfortunately, there will parents that feel they're right simply because you are the child. Someone like him will never give you the answer you want.

"That's why the only thing you can do is focus on your present and future the best you can. There will never be clarity from that man, but you have your other friends and family. And you have something better than approval: you have their love and genuine support.

"Some mysteries stay a mystery for various reasons, and it can hurt. You're allowed to be upset by it. Scream, cry, punch.. do whatever you need to do to let out that frustration. Just always remember, at the end of your release, that you have a better life than that bastard. It has made you stronger, mature, and smarter than you think. Rae, Otis, and Pico are your true family. Don't ever forget that."

.....

It took some time for Morgana to realize that they have been crying halfway through Tsuri's words. But as much as they were trying to hold it back before, they didn't bother stopping now. They always felt ashamed of their tears: why cry for that man? Why show weakness like this? Why break down and allow themselves to feel miserable?

For once, as messy as it was, it felt good to cry.

[jesuisgourde]

(@officialjonlord I was going to type this earlier but my internet went kaput for a little while. Anyway, here it is!)

I don’t think it’s anything to terribly revelatory or amazing, but it’s just something I noticed while reading the Books Of Albion journals (physical and online) after reading Peter’s archived forum(s) and blog posts.

What I noticed is that Peter is more thought out in his journals, more deliberate. He seems to consider his words more and be more selective with them. Not even necessarily in terms of crossing something out and writing a different word (which he mainly seems to do while writing a descriptive/fictionalized piece or working on lyrics), but also just even when he writes about what he’s done or about how he’s feeling. Even his more random or stream-of-consciousness style entries seem to be considering how various descriptions or visuals go together or paint a scene exactly. Since the scans both physically published and online were likely edited or at least reviewed/vetted before they were posted, I’m sure there are plenty of entries that we’re not privvy to, but the emotional entries that we do get to see seem to hold back or to be slightly more self-edited.

Compare that to the entries posted on the forums and blogs, and we see much more unfiltered, stream-of-consciousness style writing from Peter. There is definitely a reason for that: typing is often much faster than handwriting and therefore it’s easier to ramble without considering what you’re putting down. But I think it’s interesting because the displays of more intense or descriptive emotion come from the online posts rather than the journal entries. Which, again, makes sense due to the ability to just type quickly, heedless of typos or run-on sentences or the connection between descriptions. Which gives us some very poetic entries.

Peter’s poetry in the journals is often more classical-sounding, and you can see him imitating or at least being influenced by 19th and early 20th century poets and authors. His poetry and rambling on the forums are a lot less imitation and a lot more just unfiltered streams of description or narration or poetry.

Part of this I think somewhat has to do with age as well. From Albion To Shangri-La is a book of journal entries heavily edited by a stranger (rather than Peter) and is mostly just selections of fragments, but those fragments are stylistically closer to the stuff from the forums than from a lot of the stuff in the original published and online journals. But the journals are from the early days, 99-06. Albion to Shangri-La is from 08-13, and I think there’s more there of Peter just writing as himself and experimenting as himself rather than trying to emulate writers he admires.

But I do think the online entries are often more poetic than a lot of the journal entries because Peter isn’t editing himself or stopping to consider his words as much. It’s sort of a “first thought, best thought” situation. I think also since Peter kind of always intended to publish his journals, he seems to write with that intent in mind, which means he’s writing for an audience without necessarily knowing who that audience is or will be. Writing on the forums and blogs, he already has an audience, but he doesn’t need to edit himself because it’s already there. Plus, despite knowing there’s an audience, there is something sort of inherently freeing about writing to the “void” of the internet that is sort of this weirdly full emptiness you put your words into. I’m sure that had something to do with it too.

I just thought it was interesting that there was a sort of notable difference between his writings in the paper journals and his writings online. His emotional writings online are a lot more intense and free-flowing, whereas in the journals he doesn’t seem to let go as much and really rant or rave or cry out. (But, again, that could be just due to editing/vetting.) In the journals he seems to write like he’s trying to be a certain kind of author, like he’s trying to emulate the styles of the writers he really loves and admires and put his own spin on it. Which is not a bad thing! I like it! But the online entries seem much more naturally written, more “brain falling out one’s fingers and onto the page” rather than something sat down and considered.

The From Albion To Shangri-La entries (and the few typewritten poems and rambles Peter has posted on twitter etc) seem to kind of sit between the two. Which makes sense, because those are much more recent and therefore are a Peter who is maybe more comfortable and settled in to his own personal style of writing.

Anyway, that was my probably less interesting than expected thought while reading through all the journals and things!

[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

[personal-objects-blog]

Reflection

I didn’t receive as many submissions as I’d like, but from what I've received I've found this experience emotional in a way I did not expect. I wanted to initially ask all my friends and then strangers to submit a response to get a large collection of objects, but since finals week has dawned upon the students of the world, many simply did not have time. In the end what I have here are objects from my closest friends; people I live with, friends from high school, and some other friends from around college. I didn’t read all of the the submissions until before writing this, and I'm glad I did that. Without the context of seeing their face or just speaking to someone, reading their object posts made me feel like they were there speaking to me. I found my project’s goal changed in a way. Instead of trying to see if people feel different about objects after describing them, I found after describing an personal object, one describes themselves without even realizing it. 

Maybe this is because I'm a psych student and analyzing people is one of my favorite things to do, but I couldn’t help it when reading these submissions. I have a bias in that I already know this people, so it would be interesting to see if someone who doesn’t know them would pick up on the same things. I would like to go through each object and show how much they weirdly show the kind of person they are.

 Chris:

At first when I saw the suitcase, I was a little ticked off he would choose something so “boring”. After reading his post, I understood immediately. I think sometimes objects are screaming their meaning without words, but this one needed some explanation. I think that in itself says a lot about Chris; he’s a very nostalgic and symbolic man but you always have to pry the words out of him to know it. Chris recently has been working in Massachusetts and after connecting the suitcase to travel, I literally said “ohh” out loud. How could I have been so dumb to think this suitcase was just an easy copout to help me with my project. Because of Chris’ job as a theatre tech, he’s always on the move, jumping from job to job. He’s very sentimental and talks a lot about his travels, no matter the distance. I always imagined Chris in a past life as a small sailor man traveling along the waters, trying to find his way back home. 

Shannon:

When Shannon sent this to me, I nearly cried. We have been friends for over ten years and there’s no way we will never not be friends. Life has been tough for her recently and I know how lonely she’s been because of transferring schools and just chaos in general. I know she kept this scrapbook I made her, but I never knew how often she actually looked at it, or even that she brought it to college with her. Shannon has a hard time making friends, but when she does she puts everything into her friendships. She will stand up for you no matter what and will always be at your side. Sometimes it’s hard to comfort her when she’s sad, but I'm glad to know this book I made can be there for her when I can’t. 

 Isabella:

Me and my friend’s all call her our “vintage babe”, because she’s exactly that. She’s the kind of person to share clothes with her grandma and where a billion broaches from tag sales. For her to pick this portrait of a lady, and also be the only one to write their submission was no shock to me. Isabella really values traditions, and despite her distaste for her family, she’s all about carrying objects down through generations. I imagine Isabella to be 60 years old sitting in her house full of knick knacks and floral couches with this hanging carefully on the wall. 

Sandy:

Honestly when Sandy sent this to me, I knew there was nothing that could describe her better. She’s a huge nerd, and we’ve always made fun of her (in the nicest way possible) for it. I remember going to Comic Con together and watching her drool at the sight of Nintendo merchandise. The fact that it not only a Mario character, but also a cat is just too perfect. At home, Sandy has four cats and she loves with with all her heart. There is nothing that comes between her and her cats. Sandy also has a large attachment to home and her brothers, despite a huge age gap, have always been her best friends. Her mentioning how it reminds her of her brother, came with no shock. This object description is so Sandy, It’s honestly hilarious. 

Brendan:

When I asked Brendan to help me with this project, I knew he was going to choose a knife. It’s not because he is a violent man or scary; it’s because he is the most practical and handy person I know. Need a fork, spoon, and knife? Brendan will have the utility ware in his pocket. It probably has a lot to do with his Boy Scout training, but I also think thats just the kind of person he is. He’s always there for people and always trying to help. Naturally, he also has to make a reference to the “cracking open a cold one” meme because he can never be serious, even in the field of academia. I think the fact that he mentions he wants to hand this down within the family says a lot about the kind of person he is too. Like Isabella (who is his girlfriend), he values tradition and his family. If Brendan is not a father in 15 years, I will be shocked. 

Serena:

Serena has a huge longing for her home and the comfort of it. Whenever she’s upset or overwhelmed she goes home. I think it’s easier for her since she is an only child, but her parents are always comforting. This stuffed animal is very different than Sandy’s and I think that shows how important the context and personal background is to an object. While sandy’s stuffed animal also brings her comfort, it’s a different kind of comfort. Serena’s polar bear comes from a childhood comfort of being loved and coddled while hurt while sandy’s comes from being being reminded of home. This makes a lot of sense with Serena’s personality since she is someone who needs a lot of attention and care from those around her (not in a negative way). 

Noelle:

Noelle, the English education major, of course chose a book. I’ve never met someone who is so in love with literature.Her entire bedside is overflowing with books of every kind. In this very moment she’s actually sleeping with a book at her side. She could talk about Shakespeare or Virginia Wolf for days. It’s no surprise she’s the one who wrote the most. The fact that the book is also about race, gender, and mental illness says a lot her interests. I’ve seen her go on rants about stigmatization and inequality and she uses her words so carefully that everything flows as if she’s been planning a monologue.

_____________________________________________________________________

Overall I think these objects not only say a lot about the people they belong to, but it says something about me and the people I surround myself with. I have a diverse group of friends, but they all strongly value relationships. It made me really happy to read these entries and feel that I have such a great group of friends.