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Wait I've just realised Don Paolo in Pandora's Box makes no sense

I mean, his actions in the beginning are fine. It totally matches his previous modus operandi to steal a mysterious and valuable artefact. Plus he did know Dr Schrader so it makes enough sense he'd target him.

But then...

Was he on the train with Layton et al? Was he just hanging around Dropstone? Did he take the Molentary Express because he saw the train ticket too? Or did he take the train because he saw Layton was planning to take it and thought he'd be able to work out the mystery of the box for him?

From his dialogue, it seems like he was trying to solve the mystery to find the Herzen family wealth, but then he hangs about in the hotel most of the investigation.

But that side of things I can sort of accept. The really big thing is his Flora disguise.

Because Flora was not meant to go on the train ride with Layton. If Don Paulo was observing Layton and learned he was going on the train and decided to hide on board (probably in disguise) then he would have known Flora was left behind.

(funnily, if Don Paulo had packed a Flora disguise assuming Flora was coming and then realised she wasn't, he could've gotten away with disguising as Flora anyway and just saying she didn't want to be left alone, exactly as Flora actually does. Flora could have been written out of PB entirely, which I'm glad didn't happen, but it would also have avoided her being stuck in a barn for a day)

But then he sees Flora has arrived and is like good, I didn't pack my Flora costume for nothing! Or did he have several plans? Did he plan to replace Luke if Flora wasn't there? Was he hoping to do Chelmey again but then saw the inspector was on the train too?

I guess he just keeps a Flora disguise around just in case. And then he saw the opportunity and took it.

I said this makes no sense but honestly this all does indeed seem to fit nicely with Paul's MO. and also he gets that Layton disguise very quickly in Lost Future, so I expect he does just have a massive set of disguises with him at all times and has been practising everyone's mannerisms just in case.

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PokeAttorney AU Masterpost!

I'll update this as I go ♡ ---- posts ---- #pokeattorney AU main tag Choco-Phoenix-Travesty post Unnecessary feelings + WHOOOP post Pokeattorney x 15th Anniversary skit post ---- Teams (for now) ---- (in brackets the mons I haven't drawn yet) Phoenix - shiny Decidueye, shiny Umbreon, Goodra Trucy - Hoopa, Eevee, Hydrapple... (all her mons here) Miles - Gardevoir, Kingambit, Espeon, Dachsbun Maya - Mismagius, Snorlax Mia - Noctowl, (Alakazam) Godot - Luxray Franziska - shiny Gallade, (Dragonair) Gumshoe - Yamper Larry - Smeargle, (Infernape) Pearl - Clefairy Blackquill - Hisuian Braviary Klavier - Toxtricity Apollo - Skeledirge, (Exploud) Athena - Rotom, (Pawmot), (shiny Lucario) Ema - Reuniclus Nahyuta - Alolan Ninetales Kay - shiny Greninja, (Honchkrow - inherited from her father) Eustace - Politoed Iris - white Floette/Florges Dahlia - (Roselia) Kristoph - (shiny Roserade) *the WAA’s main partner pokémon are all Ghost types: Decidueye - Hoopa - Skeledirge - Rotom *Mia's Noctowl is mentor to Phoenix's Decidueye *after her death Mia's pokémon become the WAA's resident caretakers and eventually Trucy's helpers for her shows *More info about the teams: Phoenix + Miles Maya & Miles Wrightworth family x Eevee-Umbreon-Espeon (1) Wrightworth family x Eevee-Umbreon-Espeon (2) Franziska, Pearl, Blackquill, Klavier, Apollo, Athena, Ema, Nahyuta, Kay, Eustace

[quantomeno]

considering Flora is the child of a wealthy baron and could be described as being 'born with a silver spoon in her mouth', this present seems like some sort of veiled insult.

Although Flora gave up all her wealth when she left the town so perhaps it's a veiled insult about the fact she used to be rich and now isn't...

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9 Favourite Pictures of Luke Triton

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Ah yes, the Great British Desert

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The worst puzzle of all time is in the US version of Curious Village. I hate this puzzle more than any puzzle in LMJ or any sliding puzzle.

(@speedygoreman, this one doesn't appear in the European version so be glad you don't have to do it on to p of all of the other bad CV puzzles)

Puzzle 067: The Chocolate Code

On Valentine's Day, your gadget-loving, technophile girlfriend gave you a most unusual slab of chocolate. While the jumble of letters looks like nonsense, if you manage to decode the letters written on the chocolate, a message from your sweetheart will appear. What is she trying to tell you?

Hints, answers (and more ranting from me) below

Hint 1:

It's rather surprising that your girlfriend would leave you a message via chocolate. It's usually more her style to contact you via digital means.

Hint 2:

As a self-professed gadget fiend, on more than one occasion she has suffered from the uniquely modern condition of "texting thumb."

Hint 3:

If you're still stuck, just look at your closest keyboard for a hint.

Answer:

Your girlfriend's message is "TEXT ME."

The bites taken out of the chocolate show you how each letter written on the chocolate relates to letters on a keyboard.

I mean... the bites??? What bites? Where in the question was it said that there were bites?

When I tried to solve it, I noticed the bites, but I assumed that the recipient had nibbled the chocolate and didn't want to lose the message so had only taken small bites. The question doesn't say they came with the chocolate.

I mean, it's not impossible to work it out, especially if you read all the clues, but it's so out of left field. The amount of logical jumps you need to make. Like to go from 'she loves technology' to 'she mistypes a lot' is already an odd leap. Wouldn't you expect a person who loves tech to be really good at typing? And then, you need to notice the bite marks and decide that they indicate the corrections you need to make. And then you need to go and look at a keyboard. Like, what if you don't have a computer (or typewriter I guess)?

It is the first puzzle I had to look up the solution for online. Possibly even the only one. I mean, I've looked up sliding puzzle answers, but I think I always managed to force my way through them the first time after ages of sliding.

But yeah Curious Village has so many bad puzzles. It's 70% of the reason it's my second least favourite of the two trilogies. It's got a great atmosphere and a nice mystery and it's very nostalgic to me, but if I didn't already know the answers to most of the puzzles it would be a slog to replay it.

I need to finish curious village because I KNOW how good it is storywise. But. The puzzles SUCK

I HATE curious village's puzzles so fucking much and it doesn't help that the hints do next to nothing, there is no memo option, and also every fucking thing I click on makes me think I'm getting a puzzle when I'm not.

Also Layton's front facing smug little grin is testing me. Why is he like that

I'm a completionist by profession so I can't just NOT do them. But they're all so tedious I'm out here in the trenches

[quantomeno]

NO im NOT mad that my powers haven't activated AT ALL yet *my telekinesis throws nothing across the room*

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I was looking for this post when I was trying to write my Bionicle Pachidermi e Pappagalli parody. It's too late now, but it is still fun to read all these things again (and see new additions)

Reblog with your favourite piece of Cursed Bionicle Lore.

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I've been playing Stardew Valley for a long while now (I've just reached my third Spring. I play very infrequently) and early on I really like Jodi.

It's like, she's working hard trying to raise her two sons while her husband is gone. And I also like Sam and honestly Vincent is one of my favourites (he's so precious!).

And then there's that event where Jodi invites you over. And by that stage I think my heart level was really high with all three. It felt kinda like my farmer character was you know, taking the place of the dad in the family. Like, Vincent looked up to me and enjoyed me hanging out with him, and Sam and I were getting along great (maybe a little too well) and I was like being so kind to Jodi...

And then Kent returns and it's like this guy sees some interloper having nestled his way into his family and I went into this pretty blind and am not sure I knew he actually comes back, so it was kind of funny. Poor Kent, coming back to sees some random is giving his wife gifts and his youngest son feels more attached to me than his own father. But it was also a bit like, Kent! You're back! I thought you were dead.

I like to pretend he was initially really wary of me at first because of all this and it has taken a long time for him to warm up to me (also because I took a while to give him gifts he liked).

Anyway I'm currently dating all the characters (I have a rabbit's foot, don't worry) so in my attempts to raise everyone's hearts I've sort of left Jodi alone (which probably made Kent happy). I think I'll marry Penny this game, because she was the one I first got to 10 hearts and I like her a lot, but there are at least three others I particularly like.

But I would actually love it if the game let you date Jodi, and then the drama when Kent returns...

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So so SO fucking obsessed with Unwound Future from Claire's perspective (spoilers for all of this game):

Imagine you're a scientist. You have a wonderful dorky boyfriend who's recently been appointed professor of archeology, you have an ass kicking job at figuring out time travel and you decide to give your boyfriend a bit of a fancy silk hat to celebrate his achievement, because you think it's appropriate for his new fancy position.

You go to work, today you're testing out the the time machine, but things go wrong. Despite that fact, you're transported through time before the explosion can hit you... To ten years in the future.

This is AMAZING at first. The time machine worked, your team's work achieved something previously thought impossible––

And then you discover you're dead. Not only are you dead, your death messed up several people's lives SO BAD that they've never gotten over it. One of those people is the guy you worked with in the lab who had a crush on you. He's built an entire fake version of london underneath the real one in order to trick scientists to think they're in the future JUST so he can get them to build a time machine to go back in time to save you.

You talk to him, reveal who you are, and BEG him to fucking stop, but this only makes him more determined. Shit.

He also discovers you will eventually return back to the time of the explosion, so you have to very quickly make peace with your own death.

You ALSO discover that Dimitri kidnapped your other ex-lab partner to here (who became the prime minister in the meantime somehow???) Since apparently the guy had been pushing to test the time machine so much because he'd made a deal with a powerful company and decided to risk your life over not having results to show them.

You feel... betrayed. But you still don't think it was right to exact this revenge.

Also also, this guy who was a kid when the explosion happened and lost his parents is here and is suspiciously funding everything while smirking evilly, and you really don't trust him even if Dimitri does.

Then you discover, not only are they tricking those scientists into thinking they're in the future, they're also tricking YOUR BOYFRIEND into thinking he's in the future, some future where an evil version of him is creating the time machine; because YES, he's here, and he's somehow found himself at the center of solving this entire mystery.

You discover several new things about your boyfriend:

He's some sort of detective on the side now apparently. Everyone keeps talking about all those mysteries he solved and he's weirdly familiar with the officer from scotland yard who is also here for some reason.

He has kids now? One of them is a boy called Luke and that suspicious guy is pretending to be a future version of him. The other is a girl named flora. They both look nothing like him and are above the age of nine so you assume they're adopted.

He has very much taken your comment about being a gentleman to heart because he lives by it, despite it just being a suggestion you made in the moment. You realize Luke isn't his kid but just his apprentice who's there to learn about how to become a gentleman too. Everything about it is as heartwarming as it concerns you.

He hasn't taken that hat off. Basically ever. And it's also in pristine condition. Which is pretty cute, because he was so hesitant about wearing it at first, but it also kind of HURTS how much he cares. It's almost painful to think about the fact he spent ten years in your absence living exactly how he thinks you would want him to.

He's definitely incredibly traumatized by your death. You can tell, because between the two times you walk past him and his apprentice, he freezes up like your mere presence alone is causing him flashbacks. You decide to maybe not tell him you're you when push comes to shove and you need his help.

He has an archnemesis? Apparently Paul from university also had a crush on you and was so mad about you dating Hershel he swore vengeance. He's also a master of disguise now. You have to reevaluate your own self image and start wondering how many more people had crushes on you you didn't know about.

Eventually you help your boyfriend escape from being gunned down and he asks who you are and you just make up something about being your own estranged sister Celeste who you never told him about. He somehow buys it, and you get the feeling he's had to accept much stranger facts.

You two meet back at The Thames Arms, and within a couple of minutes he relays everything he's discovered about the truth of the matter to everyone in the room. You're starting to understand that thing about the mystery-solving a little more.

That suspicious guy (his real name is Clive) kidnaps your boyfriend's adopted daughter with him onto a gigantic moving fortress he's been building and of course your boyfriend is gonna want to rescue her. Him and his apprentice drive up there in his car, and you somehow manage to convince Paul to let you use his helicopter to follow them.

He breaks out his daughter, you meet him and head to the heart of the fortress to shut it down but the prime minister's heartbeat is attached to it and if it stops the fortress self-destructs. You replace him with the pocket watch your boyfriend gave you (you make up something about finding it amongst your sister's old possessions when he looks at you weird) and all of you haul ass out of there with the prime minister.

Clive is close to dying though, and you convince your boyfriend to let you go back for him because you feel terrible about the experiment you partook in taking his family from him. It was a big mistake to try and mess with the flow of time, in the end.

Everyone is brought back to safety. It's over, finally... No more suffering in your name.

Just in time, too. You can feel the minutes you have left slipping away.

Your boyfriend is informed that you are, in fact, you, and you can barely hold yourself together.

The two of you move to somewhere less crowded and you're forced to explain to him that you can't stay, and kiss him before you say goodbye.

Your boyfriend, in a move that stuns you quite thoroughly, ABSOLUTELY refuses to say goodbye to you. In fact, he yells that he won't fucking do it. You have never seen him this passionate or broken up about anything, and it dawns on you that he's pushed all of this down for years. It also dawns on you just HOW much he loves you. You can barely hold back your tears but you want to be strong for him, you don't want his last memory of you to be of you bawling. The both of you grieve the future together you lost for a few moments longer, and you try to encourage him as much as you can before eventually your time is up.

You turn the corner so he isn't forced to see it happen.

[quantomeno]

And if you look to your left you’ll see Valerie having a normal reaction to this flavor text

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So, I only started keeping track about a third of the way through Diabolical Box so I'm missing any wisdom from the beginning of that game/Curious Village, but according to Professor Layton and Luke, a true gentleman...

Pays attention to his manners in every setting

Does not pry deeply into other's affairs

Always remembers to treat a lady with kindness and respect

Never takes off his hat

Never forces a lady to say more than she wants to

Always helps a lady in trouble (Get ready, they say this one in like fifty different ways)

Helps those in need

Helps a cat in need

Shouldn't glare at people as if he wants to hit them in the face

Should not go around threatening people with knives

Should not take what does not belong to him

Never, ever makes a lady cry

Admits his mistake rather than trying to cover it up with an unconvincing excuse

Always fights for the truth

Always remains kind when conversing with a lady

Can't walk around with his head bare

If your future self has become obsessed with completing a time machine and has been kidnapping scientists from the past, then stopping your future self is your duty as a true gentleman

Keeps his promises and solves the problem

Always express gratitude for the. hospitality of others

Never plays his ace in the hole until absolutely necessary

Again, if your future self has turned evil, you must meet that challenge and stop him

Keeps his secrets

Has his hobbies

(As an aside, the violin is a very gentlemanly pursuit)

Cannot allow another to follow you into a dangerous situation

Keeps calm and carries on, even under duress

Never rushes a lady

Breaks into a house if he believes a young girl could be in danger

Always keeps his promises

Has good penmanship

Always keeps his word

Rarely resorts to punchlines

Is patient

Shows gratitude to one's teachers

When crafting a solution, always prefers the elegant one

Never refuses a request to help an old friend

Never abandons someone in need

Never neglects those in need

Finds peaceful solutions to potentially violent situations

Isn't suited for rides like a carousel

Never wipes dirty hands on his clothes

Must not jump over fences

Always obeys the highway code

Would never give a false statement to a police officer

Admires a fine collection of gloves

Always remains positive

Does not act arrogantly in the face of tradition

Treats his guests with the utmost hospitality

Always invests in a time piece

Conversely, a lady...

Never keeps a gentleman waiting

Always demonstrates good humor

Solves puzzles

[quantomeno]

There is a long (long) list of wacky and corrupt Australian politicians (not always both, but often)

I kept adding more to this list so I'm putting it under the break

Prime Ministers:

Alfred Deakin, our second prime minister, who returned to office twice later, was "a mystic and spiritualist who was obsessed with signs and prophecies ... Put simply, Deakin believed he had a divine destiny to create a nation for whites only." (source) His spiritualism wasn't widely known at the time though. He was also one of the chief architects of the White Australia Policy which limited immigration of non-British people to Australia (and was only fully repealed in 1973!!!) and he also really believed Aboriginal Australians would die out and wanted that to happen.

Billy Hughes, another racist but let's focus instead on his wackiness: he famously changed party while PM to join the opposition. After he ended his time as PM, he was expelled from that party and then expelled from the party he joined after that (twice). A famous story goes "Prime Minister Robert Menzies remarked that at one time or another, Hughes had been a member of every party. 'Not the Country Party!' interjected Arthur Fadden, that party’s leader. 'No,' replied Hughes, 'I had to draw the line somewhere.'" The joke being that the Country Party were c.... you get the idea.

It's more an oddity than anything else, but Harold Holt famously disappeared while going for a swim down at Point Nepean (if you've seen a map of greater Melbourne, it's the tip of the right peninsula, he swam on the ocean side). His body was never found which led to a bunch of conspiracy theories (including, but not limited to, him being kidnapped by a Japanese submarine). Obligatory 'they named a pool after him after he died' (he was a famously big fan of swimming and the pool was in his electorate so it made sense it's not that they were trying to be darkly humorous).

Gough Whitlam: I'm a big fan of the guy. He bought Pollocks' 'Blue Poles' for the national gallery and was ridiculed for this, but it's now worth 100-350 times the price he bought it. His real wackiness though came from the fact he was fired by the Governor General. This is notable because this has never happened before or since and the GG is otherwise a pretty boring and forgettable person. There are rumours (only rumours, mind you, and a lot of academic debate) that Queen Elizabeth II was in on it. Also maybe the CIA. Whitlam was a big reformist and had a lot of progressive policies that ruffled feathers to say the least.

Bob Hawke. I want to say he is the Australian version of Bill Clinton except better. He set a world record for skolling a yard of ale while he was at Oxford. He was a womaniser and later divorced his wife and remarried (this was a big scandal at the time). When an Australian yacht won the America's Cup for the first time, he famously declared “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum.” He was a great Prime Minister and I am very fond of him. They don't make PMs like they used to.

Paul Keating! The only PM to have a musical written about him, fitting for the man known as the Placido Domingo of Australian politics. A master of epic put-downs. When asked by the opposition leader John Hewson why he wouldn't call an early election, he replied 'because I wanna do you slowly'. He also called Hewson "a feral abacus". He called Liberal party treasurer Peter Costello "all tip and no iceberg" and had previously responded to an attack by Costello as "like being flogged with a warm lettuce". He called John Howard "The little desiccated coconut" and (on a separate occasion) "the greatest job and investment destroyer since the bubonic plague". He called the senate "unrepresentative swill". He was also a really good PM but he was probably a tad too intellectual for the average Australian. Also there was the 'recession we had to have' quote that didn't win him any favours.

Little Johnnie Howard. He will forever be known as having the bushiest eyebrows of any Australian PM, possibly of any world leader, of all time. Howard has a lot of little weird things so I'll be quick and say the time he claimed it "was not his experience" that Australia was a racist country. Also the time he refused to let a freighter carrying hundreds of refugees to enter Australian waters. He then claimed the people on the boat were throwing children overboard in a bid to force the government to rescue them (there was as much evidence of this as there was of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Howard was also the PM who got us to follow the US into Iraq, by the way).

Tony Abbott. The most gaffe-prone Australian PM ever. Unless you include acting PMs but we won't (yes I'm referring to Barnaby; yes I'll get to him later). He once ate a raw onion skin and all while visiting an onion farm. He claimed he would 'shirtfront' Putin over the MH17 disaster and to this day no one knows what exactly he meant by that. He had a penchant for wearing red budgie smugglers and it was not easy on the eyes to say the least. He got Prince Phillip an Australian knighthood. When an Australian soldier died in Afghanistan, he commented 'shit happens' and when later asked about this comment by a reporter he nodded blankly in complete silence for 28 seconds while the reporter tried to ask him questions ("you're not saying anything Tony"). He called the British colonisation of Australia "a form of foreign investment by the British government". He once said that "no one is the suppository of all wisdom" (if you don't get the blunder, look up what a suppository is). There was also the weird influence his chief of staff Peta Credlin had over him (this irritated his colleagues more than anyone else). Abbott was an unpleasant man and a shambling PM. Oh I forgot the budget!!!!!!!! The Abbott government's first budget! I'll save that for Joe Hockey's entry. He also was a massive proponent of offshore processing of refugees which was so great that Rishi Sunak decided to copy it with his plan to send refugees to Rwanda (it is still a blight on this nation but I digress). Oh yeah and he also made himself minister for women.

Scott Morrison: oh. oh... was he worse than Abbott? is it possible? At least Abbott had a vision, even if it was a bad one, Morrison just bumbled along and if we hadn't had a pandemic I don't think he'd rate a mention. The rumours he cacked his dacks in a Maccas in Engadine are (apparently) false. He does have a weird love of curries, but I like curry too so who am I to throw stones. There was the time he told protesters they should be grateful they don't live in a country where protesters get shot at. During the 2019-2020 bushfires he was found to have snuck off to Hawaii on holiday and rushed back to try to do some damage control. He then said "I don't hold a hose, mate", which went down poorly. He then visited victims and tried to shake their hands but had to forcefully take their hands and shake them. After he was booted out of office he was found to have secretly appointed himself to five ministerial positions during the pandemic without telling anyone except the governor general. He only used this power one time to override the resource minister. It was weird and no one quite knew what to make of it but the consensus we reached was it was bad. There was also the time he tackled a child while playing a friendly game of soccer during his attempted re-election campaign. I mean like full on knocked him to the ground. He also really loved sticking his thumbs up and tried to act like a loveable, daggy dad but in reality he was not so friendly to say the least. Oh and he was the guy who approved the 'Where the bloody hell are you?' ad when he was head of Tourism Australia, leading to him losing his job (this was before he became PM and it's why he's called Scotty from Marketing).

Non-PMs:

Joh Bjelke-Petersen: a really corrupt Queensland premier from the late 60s to late 80s. He was authoritarian, racist, homophobic, anti-environment (he supported oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef), moralistic, anti-abortion, anti-union, anti-taxation... etc. He was in many, many respects like the current US president-elect. He also had a role in the Whitlam Dismissal. When people protested the South African rugby team playing in Brisbane (because of the apartheid), he declared a state of emergency and sent in the police who attacked the protesters. He is a very strong contender for my least favourite politician in Australian history.

Joe Hockey: Abbott's treasurer. In an attempt to cut down on debt, the Abbott government announced a very, very austere budget in 2014. Cruelly austere. Hockey was then spotted smoking cigars with the finance minister in 'celebration' of a successful budget. This was not good for his reputation as he was living it up while poor Australians were struggling. He went on to eventually become our ambassador to the US during their administration of 2016-2020 and I think that was actually a good job for him considering the guy in charge of the US at the time.

Pauline Hanson: From humble beginnings running a fish and chip shop in Ipswich, Hanson rose to become one of Australia's most hated and most controversial politicians. She is famous for her maiden speech in 1996 when she said Australia was at risk of being "swamped by Asians", her speech 20 years later when she said we were at risk of being "swamped by Muslims", the time she went into parliament wearing a burqa as some sort of stunt, the time she walked out of parliament during the Welcome to Country, the time she climbed Uluru after it was announced climbing it was going to be prohibited (out of respect for the Indigenous people who regard it as sacred) and later she claimed she was 'indigenous' to the land because she was born in Australia, the time she blamed Indigenous Australians for their own problems, and, most famously, the time a reporter asked her if she was xenophobic and she replied 'please explain'. She is a remarkably poor orator and has a tendency to waffle. She's also homophobic and anti-renewable energy and so on and so forth.

Sam Dastyari: he took bribes from Chinese companies with links to the Chinese government and was essentially working for China and advocating their interests. I'm not sure he was that 'weird' but he was definitely corrupt.

Bob Katter: The crazy independent member of parliament from Far North Queensland. He is the current Father of the House, being as he is the longest current serving member of parliament. He has an obsession with crocodiles (he wants to cull them) and has floated the idea of giving rifles to all children. He once promised to walk "backwards from Bourke" if homosexuals made up so much as 0.001% of the population of North Queensland (claiming that there were none there). He didn't want to waste time talking about same-sex marriage because the crocodiles killing people in Queensland was more important. He's also rather racist.

George Christensen: Sex holidays in the Philippines. He was in Manila more often than he was in Parliament House. He's also Islamophobic, doesn't believe in climate change, and believes in other conspiracy theories particularly those around COVID-19.

Fraser Anning: this guy is kind of a Nazi and I do not throw that term around lightly. He used the phrase 'final solution' with reference to 'the immigration problem' (i.e. the 'swamping by Asians/Muslims' Hanson was going on about. Oh yeah, forgot to say he was a member her party but then defected to Katter's party). Even Pauline Hanson said it was 'straight from Goebbels' handbook'. Later, a boy famously hit an egg onto his head. He then slapped the boy on the face twice. This boy (William Connolly) became known as Egg Boy and was a national hero for a brief time.

Stuart Robert: this guy was the minister involved in Robodebt: the government implemented this automated debt collection thing which incorrectly calculated a lot of people's debts for government payments (e.g. for unemployment, disability etc). Essentially the government was robbing the poor and suffering in the name of tackling 'dole bludgers'. There were a number of other corruption allegations against him too.

Richard Colbeck: Aged care minister during the pandemic.... oh did he stuff it up big time. Just general incompetency during a time when elderly Australians were most vulnerable (the pandemic). It was appalling.

Michaelia Cash: famous for her marching, her odd enunciation, her oddly high intensity and her hairstyle. There was also the time she threatened "name every young woman" in the opposition who was the subject of rumours. This came off the back of when she sent the police to raid union offices. Then after the threats she hid behind a whiteboard to avoid having to talk to the press. There was also the time she got Scott Cam (host of the reality TV show 'The Block') to be 'National Careers Ambassador', for which he was paid almost $350,000 AUD and he didn't do much in that role.

Bridget McKenzie: colour-coded spreadsheets! Sports rorts! Sorry, this was a big event at the time. Essentially the government was found to have funded sports grants in marginal seats to try to help win the election, and in doing so they ignored other, more worthwhile, requests for funding. Bridget was left holding the can for this. There were found to be spreadsheets colour-coded by who held what electorate to decide which marginal seats should be targeted. She also was found to have given funds to help a rifle shooting club she was a member of.

Angus Taylor: this guy just seems to make things up a lot. He once presented a document detailing the Lord Mayor of Melbourne's air travel to try to paint her as a hypocrite on environmentalist issues. But the documents were complete bunkum and to this day no one knows where they came from. He also claimed in his maiden speech to have argued with Naomi Wolf about Christmas trees (it was a political correctness thing) while they were at Oxford together. Naomi Wolf was not actually at Oxford at the time in question.

Clive Palmer: he is a mining magnate who is trying to rebuild the titanic. He has a theme park filled with replica dinosaurs at a resort he owns. He made a political party called the Palmer United Party which was rather disunited (more on that later). He ended up losing at the following election but then spent $123 million AUD on election spending (all those ugly yellow signs.....) and won one (1) seat in the senate (for a member of his party, not himself). He also once likened himself to Gandhi.

Craig Kelly: ugh….. him… a former Coalition member, he defected and joined up with Clive Palmer on his attempted return to Australian politics. He was a big believer of COVID conspiracy theories and the like.

Jacquie Lambie: the senator from Tasmania who tells it like it is. Jacquie was originally a Palmer United member until she split from the party and became and independent. She was incredibly Islamophobic and anti-refugee. Then she went on a TV show where they got famous people to see what it's like to be in the shoes of refugees and she had a change of heart. She is famously foul mouthed. Almost any sentence she says will have the word bloody in it. She also got found out to be a dual citizen and so lost her seat and then had to regain it. The time in the wilderness only sharpened her. I actually think I like her now. She fights for the little guy, but in an honest and actually good way, not like just channelling their rage (though she does definitely do that, I mean it in the sense doesn't just use it to feather her own nest). She's proof politicians can become better people.

Barnaby Joyce: I've saved one of the bests till last. Where to start? He tried to euthanise Johnny Depp's dogs, he lived rent-free in the house of a millionaire, he was found to be (unbeknownst to literally everyone including apparently himself) a New Zealand citizen and thus ineligible for parliament (he got re-elected after he renounced the NZ citizenship), he got a $40,000 award from the richest person in Australia for being a 'champion of industry', he had an affair with a staffer which led to the PM of the time creating what became known as the 'Bonk Ban'. He also looks like a tomato when he gets angry. He also cannot string two words together. He once said a massive flood was a 'once-in-3,500-year event'. He was also our deputy prime minister for an embarrassingly long stretch. Which meant that when the PM was out of the country, he was acting PM. Which is just... yeah

I’m from the US and I have a few friends here from India and recently one of them told me “You know, we also have corrupt politicians in India but they’re not nearly as wacky as the ones you have here.”

[quantomeno]

This just made me realise I never questioned the fact Emmy not only is able to fly a plane but the plane also is colour-coordinated to her scooter, which suggests it's her personal plane.

I mean, knowing the ending of Azran Legacy, it's completely believable, but I just saw yellow plane and thought yep, that sounds like something Emmy would own and didn't ever think about it again.

[quantomeno]

That does sound familiar now that you say it... (and apparently it was in the Encyclopedia so I would have seen it when reading that too but it's been a long time since I read the entry for the Kau Kau staff)

I retract my grievances because there are plenty of real world homophones which have no reason for being so similar. I think it's a decent way to tidy up what was probably another example of early Bionicle mixing up the names for things. (it seems kaukau means to swim/bathe in Maori, so it was definitely meant to be for the mask.) The real naming issue with turaga tool is: was the Drill of Onua named after Onua or does Onua's name just mean something like earth in Matoran and so the naming is coincidental?

Cute Turaga facts of dubious canonicity from here

[quantomeno]

I felt bad that I was hogging all the feels so I thought I should share them with all of you.

[quantomeno]

I love that these turaga relationships (Vakama and Matau, Nokama and Nuju) ended up actually matching what would happen in the Metru Nui arc in terms of friendships.

I don't think it was necessarily intended to match, I think it's that both followed the same logic for pairing and ended up at the same place.

I mean, elementally speaking, it makes sense: air + fire work because air feeds fire, water + ice obvious because they're the same substance and stone + earth (which isn't here, but Whenua and Onewa invented Kolhii together, so it counts) is also incredibly obvious.

Do Onewa and Whenua do much together in the Metru arc? I haven't read the Maze of Shadows etc books in a while and so I only remember their time in the prison thing with Nuju.

I think I also always disliked the fact the staff was called the Kau Kau staff. I think I read it in the Encyclopedia and it was mildly irritating me that it had nothing to do with the mask of water breathing.

Cute Turaga facts of dubious canonicity from here