#meaning that it would have been nice if uran had more to do than just worry about atom and the negative feelings of others

[thescreaminghat]

just finished watching pluto (and just finished crying my fucking eyes out at every scene featuring epsilon and his kids) and while i understand that the focus is the philosophical and emotional narratives being explored and the weight that is given to each character, human or not, and how they grapple with their pain, it would have been kinda funny if the show had ended like this

[gwenbrightly]

Redwall Falls: Chapter 1

@faceheightknifefight and I were talking and it somehow turned into a discussion about Brome as a paranormal investigator, which spiralled into me writing the Gravity Falls Redwall au no one else asked for. Please enjoy my attempt at being creative. (the first part is a little on the short side, but the rest should be longer. You know, when I write them)

“You’re sending us away. For the entire summer?” Brome repeated. School had only been out for a few days and his parents were already ruining his life again. It wasn’t fair.

“Seasons, Brome. You make it sound like it’s the end of the world. It’s just for a few months so your father can work on his re-election campaign without the two of you getting under foot. You’ll be back in Noonvale before you know it. And besides,” his mother stared pointedly at the controller he was clinging to like a lifeline, “you need to get out more. Who knows? You might even make a few friends.”

Rose glanced up from her book and winced (probably because it was such a low blow). It wasn’t that Brome hadn’t tried to make friends in the past. Other beasts just… weren’t interested in his hobbies. They usually found his obsession with the supernatural either perfect ammunition for relentless teasing or just plain kooky.

“I… I don’t believe it.” Brome muttered indignantly. He’d thought better of denying his lack of social life. It was a losing battle. Why were parents always like this?  

“Your great aunt Polly has been asking if the two of you could come visit her for years. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I didn’t think you could handle it.” Aryah pointed out.  

“She’s not even really related to us. What if she makes us sleep outside? What if she has a secret evil twin no one knows about? Or worse. What if she doesn’t have wifi?!” he protested, anything but convinced by his mother’s attempts to reassure him. She raised an eyebrow, in an unspoken really?

“She’s your father’s godmother. I think we’d know by now if she had a twin. And she owns a tourist trap, so I’m sure wifi won’t be an issue.” she told him with as much patience as she could muster. Having given up on reasoning with his mother, Brome turned to Rose (who was taking this whole thing remarkably well) and asked, “You’re really okay with this?”

“I don’t know, it sounds kinda fun. And there are worse places to spend a summer.” she replied with a shrug. Brome nodded sagely. She did pose a fair point. He could think of at least 10 places that would be worse than Gravity Falls, even if Great Aunt Polly turned out to have a double life.

“Dance camp?” Asked Brome knowingly.

“Dance camp.” Rose confirmed with a shudder.

“Noted,” he allowed, “but weren’t you saying you wanted an epic summer romance this year? What about that?”

“Well I-yes, I did say that, but I don’t see why that couldn’t happen just as easily in Gravity Falls.” she told him. Darn. Brome was rapidly running out of valid counter arguments.

“But what about…” he wracked his brains for something, anything, good enough to convince his family this was a bad idea. He couldn’t.

“Please don’t take this up with your father, Brome. You know how it’ll end. Just… try not to ruin this for yourself by freaking out over it before you even get there, okay? I’m sure you’ll have lots of fun.” Aryah said eventually. Brome and Uran Voh were often at odds and their fights almost always turned into yelling matches. Combined with the young mouse’s tendency to over analyze everything, she was probably justified in her concern.  

“I’m not freaking out, mom. I just like being prepared for the worst.” Brome replied honestly as he slipped off the couch. He switched off his video game and fled up the stairs to his bedroom. He flung the door shut and hid under his bed where no one would find him. Stupid parents, stupid Gravity Falls, stupid everything. This was going to be the worst summer ever.  

////

The bus pulled to a stop. Rose put a bookmark in her copy of Love Amongst the Badgers and glanced over at Brome. He was still sound asleep, undisturbed by the screeching of the brakes.  

“Brome.” the mousemaid nudged her brother. He didn’t wake up.

“Brome,” she repeated, louder, “we’re here.”

Still nothing. She tried again, louder this time.  

“If you don’t wake up right now, I’ll leave you on this bus for an ax murderer to find.”

“You wouldn’t!” Brome protested, finally reacting. Rose only smiled.

“I don’t know… you have been pretty obnoxious lately…” she pointed out with a shrug.  

“I-I’ll be good! I promise!” the young mouse insisted, trying to look innocent. Rose pretended to consider this for a moment before replying.

“Okay. Works for me! Now hurry up and grab your stuff so we can go find out if Great Aunt Polly really is a were-mole – secret agent – alien with a dark secret.” she said, shouldering her backpack and pulling her suitcase out from under her seat. Brome rolled his eyes.

“I never said… you know what? I will do that. But not because I want to see if she’s got a third eye, or anything like that.” he stubbornly relented. He followed her example and gathered his belongings (and a few candy wrappers).

“Of course not,” Rose agreed as she surveyed their seats to make sure nothing got left behind. When she was satisfied, she made for the bus’s exit, Brome in tow.  

It took exactly five seconds to locate their great aunt. Dressed in a brightly colored sundress and fez, she would have been hard to miss. Even her cane, which appeared to have a magic 8 ball attached to it, was anything but subtle.  

“Who still wears fezzes these days?” Brome asked under his breath. Clearly he didn’t appreciate the elderly mole’s sense of fashion.

“Brome!” Rose hissed, not wanting to make a bad first impression on their host for the summer. Great Aunt Polly grinned and waved them over, oblivious to the siblings’ conversation.

“Hiya, kids! Welcome to Gravity Falls. A completely normal town, where nothing out of the ordinary happens. Ever. Nice to meetcha!” she greeted, shaking their paws enthusiastically. Rose was caught a little off guard by this description of Gravity Falls, but she tried to ignore it.

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Great Aunt Polly. Right, Brome?” she said brightly, elbowing her brother in the ribs.

“Uh, yeah. I, um… like your cane?” Brome jumped in, forcing himself to stop staring at her bizarre ensemble.

“Thanks, kid! All a part of Madam Mystery’s charm!” Polly told him with a wink. Rose raised an eyebrow.

“Madam Mystery?”

“My stage name over at the Shack,” the mole explained, “Your father did tell you about the Mystery Shack… right?”

“Not… not really…” Brome began.

“We know he used to spend every summer here and that it’s a pretty major tourist trap, but he’s usual too busy with his duties as town mayor to tell us much else about his childhood.” Rose finished for him. Her heart sank a little as she watched Great Aunt Polly’s face fall at this news. She hadn’t meant to upset her. But if she’d let Brome continue, the truth would have come out far more harshly.  

“Oh. That boy… I guess you’ll just have to see for yourselves. Come on, you two, might as well get going.” Polly told them after a moment.  

“Sure. Which way to your car?” asked Rose, trying to distract the mole from her obvious disappointment. She was curious to see where they would be staying, anyway. Polly nodded towards a rather beat up looking station wagon parked haphazardly between a pair of minivans.

“Right over there.”

The two siblings glanced at each other with mirrored looks of horror at the sight of the vehicle. It had quite a few dents in it along with a cracked window. And… was that a bullet hole? For a split second, Rose considered asking the bus driver if he would drive them to the Mystery Shack. Or maybe even all the way back to Noonvale. However, she was pretty sure he’d refuse, and if Great Aunt Polly had managed to make it all the way to the bus stop without dying, then they could probably survive the ride back. Hopefully.  

“Are you sure this thing is safe, Great Aunt Polly?” Brome demanded, giving the station wagon a suspicious glare. He'd never been one for risk taking unless it was to spite their father.  

“Course it is! Haven’t gotten pulled over by the cops in weeks.” Polly informed him. She popped open the trunk so they could load their things into it. Brome stared at her with the are you kidding me? look Rose knew all too well. It was the same look he gave their father whenever they argued.

“You mean you’ve actually been pulled over?” he wanted to know before getting in. Polly shrugged.

“Well… maybe once or twice.” she admitted conspiratorially. The young mouse stared at her in awe.

“Woah! I can’t believe dad is letting us anywhere near you.” Brome said with a grin. It appeared the eccentric mole had finally won her brother over. Shaking off the last of her reluctance, Rose climbed into the station wagon and sat next to him. It was going to be an interesting ride.

“First thing’s first,” Polly declared as she pulled out of her parking spot, narrowly missing a group of squirrels who were out for their afternoon jog, “we gotta come up with something less formal sounding than Great Aunt Polly. I’m gettin tired of it already.”

[cheshirehatter666]

Hey boo 🥴 I’m back and requesting Naruto again lmao. Can you write where Naruto and the reader are best friends and she hasn’t seen his sexy jutsu so maybe he uses it to become closer with her like pretending to be a girl and they end up getting close. and one night they have a sleepover and when he asks her who’s her crush. the reader says naruto is her crush and then he starts panicking. Maybe the reader finds out it’s him and they get together? Sorry this is so long.

Hey babes sorry it took so long I had some personal things going down, but I can’t wait for you to finally read what popped into my head after reading this amazing idea of yours. Again I’m so sorry this took so long, I really do appreciate all requests or asks I get, it makes me feel amazing as a writer. Anyways I hope you really enjoy this!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day after Naruto returns to the village from his solo training with Jiraiya another young ninja has come back from her own training. Walking into through the gates of her home village (y/n) (l/n) greets both Izumo and Kotetsu with a small wave and smile as she makes her way towards the Hokages office, she couldn’t wait to see everyone again.  

You had left on your own journey right after the Third Hokage’s funeral, during your travels you had been kept updated on the villages happenings via messenger hawks from your best friend Hinata and Naruto. And when Naruto wrote to you that he had his own training journey to go on, you couldn’t help but smile at the letter and wish him luck. The day you received Hinata’s letter that Naruto had returned to the village you decided it was time to head back home yourself. 

As you got closer to the Hokage’s office you couldn’t help but hear a very familiar shouting coming from said room. 

“What do you mean she still hasn’t come back yet?!?”, you heard Naruto shout as you stood right outside the door, “She left before I did, she should have come back by now. Has anyone heard from her? Or checked if she was still alright? She left on her own, what if shes hurt, or captured?” Naruto kept rambling to the people on the other side of the door. You couldn’t help but smile softly at your friends concern. Quietly opening the door and peeking inside you saw a older Naruto pacing the office as his flailed about as ridiculous scenarios about where you could be kept spewing out out of his mouth as the 5th Hokage, who you haven’t met yet, and an older Sakura looked as though they were about to yell at him to shut up. 

“Or she just arrived today and is waiting for her best friend to notice whens shes entered the room,” you interrupted his rambling with a small smirk on your lips. Upon hearing your voice the blonde teen turned to see you leaning against the door frame with a smirk on your face and your arms crossed over your chest. His eyes widened as he took you in, it had been about 3 years since he last saw you. Like him you had grown taller, not taller than him but the top of your head reached just under his chin, he had turned redder as he noticed that you had grown in more than just height since the last time he saw you. He was cut out of the trance he was sent into when Sakura blocked his view of you when she went over for a hug. 

He watched as the two of you smiled and chatted with each other about the new things you’ve been up too and the training you both endured. He couldn’t help the soft smile as he watched you laugh and talk with your friend. Ending your conversation with a ‘see you later’ as Sakura left you turned towards Naruto with a big grin that he couldn’t help but return. 

Breaking the silence between the two of you Tsunade let out a small cough to catch both of your guys attention with a knowing smirk on her face as she saw both your faces glow red at being caught jut staring at each other. Walking forward you bowed to her and introduced yourself.

“(l/n)-san, it great to finally meet you and to have you back, I hope your solo training was successful.” You nodded with a smile as you reported in everything that you encountered that would be useful to her. As you gave your report Naruto couldn’t help that smile that grew back on his face at the sight of his best friend finally being back.

After giving your report to Lady Tsunade, you and Naruto walked around the village catching up with things that couldn’t be put in letters, as you started walking to your apartment, which was next to his, you couldn’t help but admire how much he had matured, you have always had the biggest crush on the blonde ninja, and was so glad to be back by his side. As you climbed the stairs backwards laughing at the story Naruto was telling you, you missed a step and began falling forward, quickly reacting Naruto tried catching you only to trip himself falling back with you in his arms. 

After hitting the ground you both groaned at the impact, pushing yourself up you went to apologize, but froze when you saw how close your faces were. Opening his eyes he all thoughts of asking if you were alright flew out of his head as he stared into your (e/c) eyes that were staring right back. You could feel your head leaning closer to his has you maintained eye-contact with each other, but before anything else could occur a meow from a nearby cat broke you both from the hypnotic trance and made you realize what was about to happen.

Scrambling off the blonde you sat across from him, both of you with tomato red faces. “Y-you okay?” Naruto stuttered as he sat up, looking at anything but you with his hand scratching the back of his neck. Slowly nodding you quickly stood up, bowed, and shouted a goodnight, before sprinting up to your apartment and slamming the door behind you. 

Leaning your back to the door you covered your red face as you slid down to the floor, you couldn’t believe what had almost happened. You couldn’t believe you almost kissed your best friend/crush after not seeing him for about 3 years. With a sigh you just got up to get ready for bad after that embarrassing moment.

Meanwhile Naruto was still sitting in the same spot you left him, flinching when her had heard your door slam. Putting his head in his hands he couldn’t help thinking the same as you, except he was also regretting not closing the gap. Getting up he trudged up the stairs towards his own home Glancing at your closed door he sighed and went in for the night hoping to catch you in the morning, and either talk about what almost happened or for you both to just let it pass by.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day after the incident he wasn’t able to talk to you about what happened let alone see you, he couldn’t find you all day. This continued on for the rest of the week as you kept avoiding every chance you got. You just couldn’t face him after what almost happened.

You were used to hiding your crush on the boy, you were proud with how well you hid it over the years the only one knowing about being the girl brushing your hair as you hid in her room from said boy. Hinata listened as you complained on how awkward you felt now anytime you even caught a glimpse of Naruto letting out a little giggle at how much you sounded like how she was before confessing to Kiba. You just pouted at her as she finished braiding your hair, “Hinaaaaaa what am I supposed to do?” You whined laying your head in the girls lap. “I’m not sure what you want me to tell you?” Hinata said as she began gently petting your head. “If you want, I can introduce you too the person who helped me with Kiba?” You shot up out of lap and grabbed her hands staring at her with sparkles in your eyes, “Yes please!!!”

The next day you waited by the swing in front of the Ninja Academy waiting for the person Hinata told you about, sitting on the swing you began to slowly rock back and forth smiling at the memories you had with Naruto at this very swing. Hearing footsteps approach, you look up and see a girl with black hair in twin pigtails with bright blue eyes standing in front of you. Standing up you smiled at her putting out your hand as you introduced yourself. Grabbing your hand and giving it a small shake the girl smiled telling you her name, “Maki Uran”.

“Nice to meet you Uran-san, Hinata told me you really helped her with her crush on Kiba” you said as you both began walking, “I really hope you can help me with mine.”  You glanced at her with a small blush not use to talking about it with anyone who wasn’t Hinata. The black haired girl just gave a small giggle and nodded, “Of course (l/n)-san, I’d be happy to help.”

“Oh you can just call me (y/n), no need to be so formal” you chuckled as you relaxed a bit with her. “Okay (y/n)-chan, then you can just call me Maki.”

Smiling at the girl you asked if you could talk about your crush over ramen, considering it was nearing lunch time and you were starving. Agreeing you both made your way to Ichiruka’s and made your orders. 

“So (y/n)-chan, what’s got you so bothered that you need my help?” Maki asked as you both waited for your food. Letting out a small laugh you felt you face heat up in embarrassment, “Well there’s this guy I’ve had a crush on for years, and I’ve always been good at hiding it, but something happened recently that kinda changed that.” As you explained your feelings for Naruto, Maki listened intently nodding her head as you ended you explanation with what happened the other night.

Before Maki could respond your food was placed in front of you. Maki began digging into her own food as you just picked up your chopsticks staring at her with a soft smile on her face, “You wanna know the funniest thing about him though?” you asked her as she stopped mid slurp to glance up at you, “He doesn’t realize that I would know his chakra signature anywhere,” you said with a closed eye smile letting out a small giggle as ‘Maki’ began to choke on ‘her’ noodles. Taking a bite from your own bowl you smiled at ‘her’ as ‘she’ released the jutsu. You continued to eat your food as Naruto looked down at his lap ashamed that he tried to trick his best friend like that “If you knew it was me why didn’t you say anything in the beginning,” he mummbled with a pout now on his face as a stared at your smiling one. “Because I saw this as my opportunity to tell you what I felt without having to actually having to look at your face.” 

Looking up in shock Naruto couldn’t help but stutter, “Y-you mean, everything you s-said is the t-truth?” Giggling at his shock you finished up your bowl and leaned over giving him a peck on the cheek and, “You tell me.” you whispered with a smirk as you got up and walked out of the little ramen shop. Blushing as you heard him finish up his own Ramen quickly then running out to catch up to you. He smiled down at you as he walked beside you intertwining your hands together with a small blush of his own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I really hope you liked this again sorry for such a late reply.

[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