#so this is not about people being passionate or invested or hyperfixating or even annoying as a result of that

[frevandrest]

Why are Girondins so annoying?

Lmao, Robespierre, is that you?

Seriously, tho... Not sure why (if?) others find them annoying so I can't comment on that (I have some ideas, but I can't speak for others). Personally, I am not an expert on Girondins so I don't focus on them so much. I don't think they were "the best option" (not with the whole "protect propertyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!1111" shit that they had going on), and I disagree with a lot of stuff, though I do think some of them had some based takes.

But honestly? I am mostly annoyed at today's (mis)understanding of Girondins and flop takes that come with it. They are somehow remembered as these level-headed, "good" revolutionaries who want change but through democratic TM and not violent means... When they are the group who advocated for the fucking war that claimed hundreds of thousands of people (and also messy bitches who attacked their opponents - they were not somehow above that stuff).

Look. I love learning and researching frev. I like it even when the content is difficult or when I disagree with historical people. It's just so interesting to me. But I have a short patience for flop takes about frev that are just factually incorrect but try to sound profound (or, worse, like activism). Bad "feminist" takes are there, but also a lot of bullshit and misinformation about other things. Liking Girondins is often not about Girondins at all - it is about criticizing Montagnards, which is often based on incorrect info (biased Anglo takes, Thermidorian takes, horribly inaccurate online takes, etc.) If one wants to hate frev/Montagnards/Robespierre/whoever, be my guest, but at least be correct about it. Unfortunately, Girondins attract a lot of bad/incorrect takes precisely because of their reputation as "good" revolutionaries, which means people interpret them through today's lens, which in turn makes it very, very annoying to read.

[5ivebyfive]

read your blogs about chapter 12 possibly being the last chapter of shut up and drive and got concerned. after putting it off for a while due to being busy and just... unmotivated to consume any content, i decided to finally give it a read. spent practically the entire day reading it. let's just say i did not expect to get as invested as i did. i've been hyperfixating on power rangers 2017 for a while now, but with the lack of new content, i was slowly losing interest (which absolutely broke my heart, because i truly adore this movie). however, reading shut up and drive has gotten me right back into it. this fic is genuinely my favorite piece of work on ao3. i have so much admiration and love for it. i practically felt... every single emotion i could possibly feel while reading it. needless to say i was in tears for a lot of it (i cry due to, like, every strong emotion i feel, and i felt a lot of strong emotions reading shut up and drive. jesus christ i'm just a wreck after the ending of the last chapter). changed my entire discord layout to match it, and am currently in the process of changing my phone's layout as well. yes, i loved it that much. it made me wonder why i hadn't read it sooner. as a starving trimberly fan, i've been lingering on your blog for a while now. sent a few anonymous asks here and there. read a lot of your work on ao3. i just feel really guilty for not commenting and interacting as much as i should've. i guess i was... scared to? i don't know. i've never really been good at describing my love for things, and i didn't quite know how to properly comment on your blogs and work in the first place. not to mention the irrational fear that i had of being "annoying". i know this is a little long, but all of this is basically just a way for me to make up for not praising your work sooner. i know how much of a bitch writer's block can be, and despite the fact that i hadn't even read shut up and drive when i saw your recent blogs, i was really saddened by the fact that it was coming to an end. that's what motivated me to read it in the first place. you've had so much passion for it, and it was genuinely so inspiring. i really want to try interacting with your posts more, which is also why i've decided to send this ask non-anonymously. feeling like you're posting into a void is one of the worst feelings, speaking as someone who's never really been in "active" fandoms (for some reason). you're definitely not alone in this fanbase. i want to try to post some of my own work as well, which is something i wouldn't have even considered if it wasn't for you. thank you for everything you've done for the power rangers 2017 fandom. thank you for every single fic, every single chapter, and every single blog you've made related to it. words can't describe the joy your work has given me. i have so much work to do, yet spent the day reading shut up and drive instead. i don't regret a thing.

Wow! This message is so wonderful, thank you! I don't even know what to say in reply.

I really appreciate your dedication to my little story. It means so much to me. I'm completely obsessed with this fic right now so it feels good to know I'm not alone.

When I say I miss interaction it's not about wanting more comments. I appreciate any comments I get. I may have used the wrong word. Like...I miss activity. I miss following blogs that post about the movie and Trimberly. I miss people reblogging things. Especially fic and art. Though maybe more so fic. I do think art gets more reblogs than fic does. Which it deserves! But fic deserves it, too.

I miss there being a community and people to talk to. I miss us sending each other asks and talking about headcanons and everything. It's just not the same as it was, and everyone has moved on. It's hard to be one of the people still holding on when most people have left.

I don't think chapter 12 will be the last. I just can't do that to this fic. It deserves the justice I had planned for it. It's amazing that you're so devoted to it! Thank you!

I guess I'm not leaving the fandom. I just get frustrated. It feels like there are so few people left, and even the friends I thought I'd made regardless of fandom have faded out, and that hurts.

I just...really miss it all. But I'm glad that I'm not alone yet, and I'm so appreciative for everyone who still reads my fic and my blog.

[miss-atomic-bitchh]

[sorry in advance if this sounds like a really lengthy essay or if it annoys you]

what’s really funny about all this level up discourse lately is that as a kpop stan, I’ve always tried to avoid telling people in this community that I’m a kpop stan (or kept it lowkey) because many people have this stereotype of us being deranged 14 yr old girls...(as someone who has been a kpop stan since middle school, I can confirm that I went thru that phase 😅 but I have simmered down MUCH more since then).

I don’t want people to say things like “you’re 21 and u STILL like KPop?” (I mean, most kpop idols these days ARE technically around my age...even tho that’s slowly changing) cuz APPARENTLY once you enter your 20s you’re suddenly supposed to cut yourself off from your interests. I HATE the stereotypes people have about us - no life, no goals, only obsessed about my fav oppars and unnies. That’s SO not true at all!!! Because they’re lurking in the WRONG kpop stan circles. Yes, there is a small fraction of adults who genuinely have no life and love kpop and start petty drama with the younger stans. But that’s all they are...a SMALL fraction!!!!! And we don’t claim them!

I’ve met plenty of intelligent, successful, dignified high-value women who go hard at stanning their favs but still live wholesome lives outside of it. I for one don’t have the time to stream stuff and see “who’s doing what” as much as I used to. I have other life priorities now. My level up journey is so important and sacred to me and I must take care of each aspect of my life not only be hyperfixated on something that won’t help with my personal growth. But the genre is still something I’ll always keep close to my heart. Just because I’m into fandom stuff doesn’t make me “low-value”. I’m not a low-value woman just because I like stuff that typical teens like. Because despite the passion I have for stanning my faves, I’m not a delusional person...I’m not going to electric chair you if you simply aren’t into my favs.

The only people telling you what to do with your life are these level up blogs run by people that you'll probably never meet and don't know who you are. Just like what you like. KPop will help with your personal growth if you enjoy it, how would you feel if it was stripped from your life and you were never allowed to be emotionally invested in it again? It would be a detriment to your mental health. You're not low-value if you like k-pop, I can't believe I'm having to validate your point.

[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