#it's sad that he is a pretty obscure figure nowadays

[clove-pinks]

Which War of 1812 naval surgeon do you most admire, and why?

Or, if none are worthy of your admiration, tell us who you most deplore!

For admiration, it has to be Thomas Harris! He founded the first school of naval medicine in the United States and was eventually head of the Medical Department of the Navy. His medical ideas, while occasionally dated, are notable for sensible recommendations for exercise and physical activity, and he was a great supporter of continuing education for naval surgeons. ("As valuable improvements are yearly making in our extensive science," he wrote to the Secretary of the Navy in 1816, "my duty as well as ambition prompts me to endeavour to keep pace with them.")

His first post as a naval surgeon was aboard USS Wasp, and he was present for the bloody and violent action against HMS Frolic. He assisted the British surgeon immediately after the battle, and received high praise from the Americans and British alike for his professionalism and skill. He also served aboard USS Mohawk on the Great Lakes and was at sea for almost the entire War of 1812, then he departed for the Second Barbary War as surgeon on USS Macedonian. A great teacher and administrator, the man did not lack for practical experience in naval combat. Among other accomplishments, Harris also wrote a biography of Commodore William Bainbridge.

And just LOOK at him! Who wouldn't want to give him a hug! 🥰

[jacke-12]

No Milk Today (1966) - Herman's Hermits

Genre: baroque pop

Peak position on US Billboard Hot 100: n/a (but 7 on UK Singles Chart - a non-US single)

Herman's Hermits were one of the most popular of the British Invasion artists, but I feel they are rarely mentioned nowadays - perhaps because they seemed to lean towards humourous fluff rather than more serious music (but from a brief foray into their other songs for this review, they are charming and enjoyable). "No Milk Today" is a bit of an exception, a song about a relationship ending, told in an interesting way.

It is inspired by a once common aspect of life I have never really experienced - milkmen dropping off fresh milk to houses in the mornings. The narrator has to leave out a "no milk today" sign since the relationship ended and there is only one person living there, so they no longer need as much milk. I love art which explores how things that appear mundane ("how could they know just what this message means?") can be indications of something much more significant. I do think though that there could be an even more effective way of exploring this concept than these lyrics, one that allows you to figure out why the "no milk today" sign is significant rather than immediately explaining it all to you. However, this song is ultimately a pretty light-hearted track that I have no reason to expect subtlety from. And it is still a unique approach to the breakup song.

It would also be extremely easy to not realise the sad subject of this song. It is a jaunty track with a sing-along melody. It reminded me immediately of something like "Up the Junction' by Squeeze - something about the very simple, repeating tune that is an immediate earworm. He sings about the end of his hopes and the end of all his dreams as though he hasn't a care in the world. I love how catchy and cheerful these miserable lyrics become. It makes me laugh everytime. I have no idea if it is intentional, but its a fun contrast.

The harmonies are lovely too, as is typical of baroque pop. And it has those elements of classical music of course, like those lively strings, and, my favourite, those chimes during the chorus which I think sound distinctly like the bells in the sticker collecting minigame from Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games. (That's a very obscure reference but it really takes me back.) Baroque pop can be great for taking these often grand and dramatic orchestral instruments and using them to make cute little tunes like this.

[yue-muffin]

@mejomonster I’m sorry I wrote an ESSAY AHH. The thought of squishing it in the messages was horrifying haha.

Ok ok. First, I genuinely LOVE open discussion about translating. :3 If it was a more stable career, I would have gladly thrown myself at it in a heartbeat. You bring up some excellent points that I’ve lovingly stewed over with no one to talk to about for years haha.

In my early translation days I also preferred more direct translations even if they ended up stilted, but nowadays I prefer looser translations that prioritize the original intent over the original wording. Part of it is, that direct translations help you learn more. If every translation omits the original chengyu for an English equivalent, you’ll never end up learning that chengyu and its cultural context. So I get where you’re coming from! It took me a long time to get over that stage myself...

Ok, now my Translator Brain will step up lol.

Backing up a bit, the first step, assuming no language limitations, translation is…you’re basically the god of your own little world, haha. Before you translate a single word, you have to decide your intended audience. This is also where you decide whether you’re making a translation or a localization. People get all up in arms about localizations, and I have strong (negative) feelings towards some. But localizations have their place, they get new fans into a work, bc they’re geared perfectly for the average, casual player/reader/watcher. Pokemon (the game) is actually a really good example of this. The names of the Pokemon are brilliantly clever in each respective language bc they went for localization instead of literal translations. 

Early translations of the Tale of Genji, while…problematic and heavy on the orientalism, had their place at the time bc it made people interested in the work and Japanese culture, whereas they wouldn’t have cared nearly as much probably if the translation was not approachable. Nowadays, we have much more accurate translations of Genji :) with delicious footnotes :). This is why I don’t understand why people get SO up in arms about translation poaching. Imagine if there was only (1) one version of Genji?? Or any other classical work?? If someone wants to use their valuable time to make a translation on something that already has one, that’s entirely their perogative.

When not going for a hard localization, the choice then falls on: what do I translate more literally, what do I NEED to convert to fully “English” wording to make sense.

Oooh yeah, and stilted characters/narratives! That’s a great point. You also have to recognize when some characters or situations just…do sound stiff in the original, and you should keep that stiffness in English. I think this is a skill that comes with fluency with the language (ex: Lan Wangji from MDZS, I THINK he’s supposed to just be succinct and reticent, but depending on how you translate him, he seems rude or bad with words. Unfortunately, English is a language that does NOT deal in word economy, so you pretty much have to make him say a lot in English or else people will get the wrong idea…like I did.)

In the novel I translate, one character is this exact scenario and idk know how to word him in English sometimes. He speaks informally (inappropriately so sometimes), but it’s a little stilted bc he’s not had much exposure to the outside world, and speaks like he’s regurgitating what he’s been taught by his parental figure. It’s really difficult to get that across in English without making him sound too much one way or the other lol.

I could talk for DAYS about good and bad Japanese localizations/translations. :D I have never played Kingdom Hearts but totally understand- there are SO many games/movies where I was sad at the stuff lost in translation, but some of them are so good at maintaining the overall context and feel, and that’s just a trade-off that has to be made. I do get sad when a localization isn’t as good, or outright changes a character’s story arc tho. >:|

It’s also definitely a choice whether to keep much of the original terms (Shimei/shidi etc). I tend to prefer them to stay in too, but minimally if that makes sense? Sometimes I see translations where they keep a lot of them in, which is great for me but my inner translator cringes at how hard it would be to keep up for someone who doesn’t know the language.

(Asura to Vanquishers is 100% unacceptable I Do Not Care About Excuses lol. Also, yao/yaoguai, and yokai I feel are ones that should stay untranslated 100% of the time. You run into so many grey areas and issues if you try to translate these terms into English bc there’s simply no equivalent (or...you will translate 1 thing as “spirit” and later encounter a totally separate word that can also be translated as “spirit” and be left unable to explain the difference without a footnote) and the English terms are too loaded with their own cultural context…

Ooh yeah I…”love” those phrases that NEED to be worded differently in English. Some are easy, some are ??? HOW do I- and GAH I hate filler words lol. You really need to learn when they’re used by exposure lol bc all explanations/definitions I’ve found do not really explain when to use things like 就 lol yeah, emphasis but how do I convert to english?? Japanese has a lot of little particles like that (not as many as Chinese tho) and occasionally I’m all ?? OK, so DID this change the meaning of the sentence or nah…Part of dealing with those, to me, is learning to tell when you can just drop them like a hot potato and convey the feeling in the overall sentence instead haha.

AHH Sha Po Lang…that translation sounds like it speaks to my heart and also very difficult to craft. The Most Difficult VN I Have Seen, Ever is one where the original writing is so…good but also ridiculous? Like, the reason this VN is so annoying to translate and read (native speakers had to get the dictionary out lol), is bc it uses many obscure terms, its word economy is off the charts. But the narrative isn’t that dense just for the lolz. It’s bc the MC is a scholar? Or, like, a well educated and thoughtful student who feels very deeply about the world and things happening, so he just…waxes poetic. GAH when the narrative Fits the characters and their world so well, my heart just gets happy.

[kirawritesaboutevanstan]

The anchor in their lives  -Chapter four

A/N: I'm not fully happy with this chapter and it feels kind of like a filler. But here it is and it’s important for what’s to come.

I promise this series will be more interesting soon, this is my first one ever so I’m still figuring out how to do this and getting some experience. So bare over with me.

Summary: When two super soldiers lives get turned upside down, they move into an apartment in Brooklyn, trying to deal with their past and figure out their futures. So what happens when the apartment next door gets a new resident, one who has the potential to change their lives in ways they could never imagine.        The question is; Will they let her?

Pairings: Stucky x Original Character Annie ( eventually )

Disclaimer:  This story may contain strong language, polyamorous relationships and eventually smut, mental health talks( anxiety, depression, PTSD and so on. If you’re not comfortable with any of those, you might not want to read this series.

Interested in reading more of my stories? Well, you can find them right here. 

Looking for the masterlist for this series? Well, look no further. It's right here. 

Word count: 2,700

Warnings: None I think? 

TAGLIST IS OPEN, for this series and my permanent one. Currently, those are the only taglists I have. Contact me either by an ask, message or comment specifying which one you prefer x

Previously...

Chapter four

STEVE’S POV

Steve walks in with Annie following him Bucky stares at them with huge eyes, he gives Steve a panicked look to which he replies with a soft smile as he introduces her. "Bucky, this is our new neighbor Annie. I offered her to stay here until the heat comes back because she was freezing in her apartment." Steve says with a big smile, and Bucky looks a little nauseous. Annie gives him a little shy wave, but he keeps staring at her with wide eyes.

"I would offer you a drink, but I'm afraid we only really have cold water from the faucet. Do you want a glass?" Steve offers and Annie shakes her head biting her bottom lip.

"Okay, well sit down. Make yourself at home. We don't bite I promise." He chuckles and smiles at her again. She sends him a little smile and carefully sits down at the opposite end of the couch to Bucky. As she sits looking around the room, Steve has the perfect opportunity to look at her properly.

Her most prominent feature are those brown curls framing her long face. Her brown curly hair stops just above her chest, and it looks so soft, He gets the urge to touch it, to run his fingers through her hair, and then wonders where that came from. Her face is long but adorably chubby, her cheeks were round with a lovely rosy color, but her cheekbones are sharp and well defined. Long black eyelashes and thick eyebrows surround her incredibly dark brown eyes. Her nose is slim, short and completely covered in freckles. Actually, most of her face is covered in varying sizes of light brown spots and freckles. Her lips are perfectly pink and plump, and they look soft. He could tell from her soft smiles that she has dimples, and he hopes that he could get a big smile out of her to see them in action. He can't quite see her body, the view obscured by three blankets covering her frame. But she was short and seemed to be slightly curvy.

She was beautiful, so, so beautiful. Steve hasn't felt attraction like this towards anyone ever since Peggy. He had tried dating, but no one had caught his eyes and, of course, he had Bucky to deal with, and he took most of his time.

She must have felt his gaze because now her big brown eyes look into his blue. And he feels a sudden warmth rush through his veins. She gives him a little soft smile, and he returns it while blushing.

"I like your place, the interior is uh cool" Annie mumbles her cheeks turning bright red. "Thanks, I decorated it myself," Steve tells her, and she smiles at him. "Really? It's a nice mix of modern and old-fashioned." She chuckles and adds. "Very forties like with a twist of the modern style" He smiles even brighter at her words, that was precisely the style he was going for. "That's exactly what I tried to do, you have a keen eye" He compliments her, and her cheeks turn red again as she chuckles nervously mumbling a "Thanks" Steve smiles so warmly and tenderly at her and she smiles at him. They sit there for a while until he hears a growl and turns to see Bucky suddenly get up from the couch and mumbling an "I'm going to bed" before marching out of the room and slamming his door shut.

ANNIE’S POV

A loud bang from inside the apartment, most likely the room where Bucky, the brown-haired scowling man marched to, makes her jump.

"Don't worry about it. It's just Buck. He uh, is having a hard time lately. It's nothing personal." Steve, her new neighbor, tells her, his voice is kind but low. "Maybe it would be better if I leave?" She says as she starts to get up, but Steve stops her, holding out both hands to her.

"No no, please don't go. Stay, please. He's just having a tough time. It has nothing to do with you." He pleads, his eyes begging her to stay. She sighs and nods. Steve exhales loudly and smiles at her.

Her day had been weird, to say the least. Well her whole week had been rather odd. The first day she had met a lady who lived downstairs, and when she told her that she lived upstairs, she had scoffed and wished her good luck, in a very insincere and rude tone. Which seemed rather odd but she thought that maybe she was simply old and strange.

Then the first night she had heard it. The most horrible screams, or well more roars of agony and horror. It was from out of a horror movie. She ran out her front door and followed the sound. It came from her neighbor's apartment. The screams were so loud that it made her skin crawl with the amount of agony, fear and just pure pain. She quickly ran back to her place locking the door.

Maybe that was the reason for the lady's rude response.

And now somehow she found herself in that same apartment where those horrid screams came from, she internally curses herself for not being able to say no. But then again her place was freezing cold, and Steve seemed so lovely and warm that she couldn't resist. Not to mention handsome with his long blondish hair and the long beard. His insanely broad shoulders and bulging muscles, hidden underneath a black t-shirt that was a bit too tight. A pair of grey sweatpants and black socks. He was very handsome indeed and oddly familiar. Now when she thinks about it, so was that Bucky guy.

"Have we met before? You seem so, uh, familiar" She blurts out before she could stop herself. Steve tenses up a little, running a hand through his long hair as his insanely blue eyes meet hers.

"Um, well, you've probably seen me on TV" That surprised her.

"Are you an actor?" He smiles softly. "No, I'm uh. How can I explain this" Steve mutters and then it hits her. Something about the way his face turned into this serious one.

Captain America, Steve Rogers. Of course, she knew she had seen him before and even heard his name. He was a superhero, an avenger even. And Bucky was the winter soldier, that explains the cold looks and hostile attitude. He also had to be the one screaming, and she couldn't blame him, knowing just a bit of his story, mainly because of her interest in the forties.

"Oh my god, you are Captain America" Annie gasps, and he cringes but nods.

"Can't deny that one," Steve says scratching his chin.

"Wow, I had not seen that one coming. This week gets weirder and weirder. Not that you are weird, just weird that this happened. It’s all just weird. Okay, I'm going to stop saying weird now." Annie rambles as her cheeks blush, making Steve smile at her.

"It's okay Annie, relax. I'm just a regular guy who happened to get a super serum and lived in the forties once." Steve jokes making her laugh.

"How was it? I mean the forties." Annie stares at him with glowing eyes, and he smiles softly at her.

"Very different from nowadays. Simpler in some ways, harder in others. Penicillin is good. And the hygiene is a lot better. Less death, which is nice. But also everything seemed simpler back then. The internet is useful but so confusing not to mention the endless technology."

"It must have been insane waking up in this world coming from that" Annie whispers, and Steve looks a little sad. "I'm sorry. God, I'm way too nosy. I'm sorry. I just get so excited sometimes" She blushes, and Steve smiles gently at her again. “I study history in university” She explains and blushes.

"Don't worry about it." He comforts her and adds "Plus I'm not Cap anymore. Just Steve now." Annie frowns in confusion then she remembers hearing something about that.

"Because of the accords right?" She asks him, uncertain whether this is her crossing a line with her curiosity. But he doesn’t seem bothered by it.

"Yeah, well it's all so very complicated. But pretty much the idea is that I'm not Cap anymore." Annie nods and decides to leave it at that.

"So history, how come you chose that?" Steve changes the subject and smiles at her.

"I don't know to be honest. I guess it just spoke to me. History is important, you know? It tells a story about what once was. And I guess I’m just curious by nature” Steve smiles at her and nods.

“Yeah, it certainly is.”

They look at each other, and they both blush averting their eyes. “So, are you from around here?” Steve asks after a few moments of silence.

“No, no, I grew up in Canada actually, Vancouver to be specific.” He seems surprised by that, frowning slightly and then meeting her eyes. God his eyes are so blue it’s mesmerizing.

“What made you come here then? All the way from Canada.”

She shrugs and says “New York has one of the best universities focused on history. And I guess I needed a fresh breath of air.” Steve laughs at that, grabbing his left pec and she can’t help but smile at his amusement.

“Well, you won't find that in New York, more the fresh breath of urine and car sot,” He says while laughing, and she joins him. “Good point, but there is something quite special about New York, don't you think?” Her eyes glisten, and he stares at her with a little-dazed look on his face as if he was hypnotized.

“Yeah, I do” They smile at each other, both feeling the start of something buzzing inside their chests.

Hours pass of them merely talking about their lives and laughing and Annie feels her body slowly warming up, but it's not from the fireplace no it's from the warmth that radiates from Steve mere presence.

A sudden flicker of lights and the whole apartment lights up blinding them both momentarily. Steve peeks out from his hand covering his eyes and mumbles “I guess the power is back” then gets up and walks over to the radiator and sure enough, it’s starting to heat up as well. Annie can’t help but feel a little sad mainly because this means that their time together for the night is over and she has to return to her apartment.

“Thanks for everything Steve. I had a nice time talking to you, and I appreciate your hospitality, but I should probably get back to my apartment.” Annie says, and Steve nods slowly, is her mind playing tricks on her or does he looks sad too?

“Yeah, it was nice chatting with you, and you are welcome back anytime okay? We’re just next door don't hesitate to come knocking even if you just need a cup of sugar” She laughs and nods.

“Okay then, I'll remember that. Thanks, Steve” He follows her out to the front door and opens it for her as she steps out into the hall.

“Anytime. Sleep tight Annie.” She smiles and waves as she unlocks her door and walks in closing it behind her and leaning on the door, taking a deep breath.

“Oh my gosh, this is insane. What are you doing Annie? Stop pounding so hard heart you hardly know him.” she mumbles as she shivers and gets ready for bed. Her mind still buzzing with the image of the soldier smiling at her and those blue eyes staring into her soul.

STEVE’S POV

He leans on the door taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. “What just happened?” He asks no one in particular, laughing to himself. All he can see is her big brown eyes with that excited gleam staring at him, and his stomach does a single flip.

Then he remembers Bucky and walks to his room. Knocking on the door, he hears shuffling but no reply, he decides to open it anyways and peaks inside. “Bucky?” No response, but he knows he isn't asleep. He then carefully walks in noticing the broken picture frame. Well, that explains the loud bang earlier, he thinks to himself. He finds him sitting on the bed, something about his posture makes a shiver run down Steve’s spine. Steve walks over and sits down next to him, carefully placing a hand on his shoulder. Bucky’s eyes meet his, but they aren't filled with fear like they usually are, no there is something else burning inside, but Steve can’t figure out what that is. “You okay?” He asks him and Bucky nods, but something about his whole demeanor makes Steve doubt that.

“Where is your new girlfriend gone?” Bucky asks him his voice laced with disgust. Steve frowns. “What are you talking about?” “Annie” Bucky practically hisses her name and removes Steve’s hand on his shoulder; Steve lets it fall to his side looking down at his knees.

“Don't be like that Buck. You don't even know her, give her a chance.” Steve argues suddenly feeling exhausted. This happened every time they met someone new, Bucky would be all paranoid and pissed at them for even daring to enter their lives. Although this time did seem a little different as if there was more to it than just Bucky not trusting this new person, Steve wasn't sure.

“Why would I? She is going to leave in a few weeks anyway. Why even bother? I'm going to scare her off you'll see.” He whispers while looking out the window. “She might not leave. She seems to have an understanding of us.” Steve says looking at his back; he seems tense and maybe sad? Steve can't decipher the soldier.

“Did you tell her?” He suddenly turns to him eye blazing and fists clenched. Steve is taken aback by the sudden fury in his eyes not being able to reply. “Did you tell her Steve?” Bucky hisses with clenched teeth.

“No Bucky, I didn't tell her. She recognized me what was I to do? Deny it? I can’t do that.” Bucky growls and turns towards the window again.

“Bucky come on.” Steve pleads with him and walks over to him placing one arm on his back, Bucky flinches from his touch and turns to face him. The two men are standing close, so close that if either one of them took one step forward, their chests would touch.

“What’s really going on Buck? It can't be because she knows or whether she will leave again soon. I know you, something else is going on.” Steve lowers his voice hoping to soothe him and calm him down. Bucky refuses to meet his eyes as he stares out the window, chewing on his bottom lip with a scowl on his face. Steve takes half a step closer, feeling brave, he reaches out one hand placing it on his shoulder again.

“Tell me what’s going on” Steve whispers looking at his face. The air is thick with tension, something both men feels but doesn't know what to do with.

"I-" He begins but stops looking away. Steve notices the tears glistening in his eyes.

"Oh Buck" Steve sighs and pulls him in for a hug, Bucky usually refuses to be hugged but something inside him that night made him lean into his touch instead of pulling away. Steve wraps his arms around him, and Bucky hides his face into his neck inhaling his scent, something Steve didn't notice he did.

“Don't leave me, Stevie. Not for her” Bucky whispers almost inaudible into his neck but Steve does hear him, and his heart does a flip and then sinks.

Steve pulls back a little and places his hand on his cheek, trying to get him to look at him and when their eyes meet Steve does something he never knew he would, something that takes him by surprise but feels natural at that moment.

He leans in and ever so softly presses his lips to Bucky’s, and even more surprisingly Bucky kisses him back.

Fin x 

Next chapter...  

Feedback is always welcome and even encouraged; I would love to hear your thoughts. xx

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Permanent Taglist: A special thanks to @holland-stan-posts for all your help piecing this story together. I couldn't have written this without you babe xxx / @bibegone / @sergeantjbuckybarnes / @hannahll14

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[tumblunni]

“SO WHY DO U WANT 2 HUG THIS TRASH GRANDPA, BUNNI” post

Okay, i figured since, well, that one goddamn wifi event is That One Goddamn Wifi Event, I may as well make a short post about it so people who weren’t able to see it can understand how it fuckin Blew My Mind when I was a teenager and plunged me into the fandom hell for the most obscure unloved jerkass grandpa who may or may not even be the guy this vague tantalizing mystery plot point is even about, and AAAA

So yeah here we go, transcript of the event text (thanks, Bulbapedia!) and some general summary of the context of who da fuk dis Charon is, and hopefully maybe at least one more person shall now understand this tiny fandom for a tiny gremp!

~The Context Of Charon~

(skip all this if you just wanna get to the wifi event transcipt)

If you haven’t played DPPT and don’t plan to: The villain team of Sinnoh is Team Galactic, a bunch of silly guys in space costumes with a rad jazz theme tune and a surprising level of competance in a terrifying plan to erase the universe and replace all emotion with infinate silence. Also, interesting moral ambiguity cos most of them are either oblivious or outright good, just being manipulated by the team’s super scary badass leader Cyrus who’s led them to believe they’re going to ‘fix’ the world to end all sadness for everyone. This weird complexity behind goofy nonsense hair people is what got me hooked on them as my faves!

So who is Charon in particular? Diamond and Pearl got a third version called Platinum that fixed a bunch of glitches and unfinished graphics and expanded upon the rushed endgame, etc. It also (for some reason) added one single extra member to Team Galactic, as seen here on the second furthest from the right. Charon is a grumpy grandpa and he literally does nothing in the plot. Its really confusing why he was actually added, he only gets more than two lines of dialogue if you pursue a secret sidequest waaaaay in the postgame, and he still gets like.. SIX lines of dialogue and not even a boss fight. Poor dude barely exists in this game! So what’s weird is that this wifi event kinda contains more dialogue for him than he ever got in the main game, and it at least gives him a purpose for being here- to introduce the new transformations for Rotom that were added in this wifi event. But it just seems pretty badly handled cos he never even appears in the event and there’s a lot of fan debate that it isnt even meant to be him, blablabla. And he still doesn’t do anything UNLESS you get this wifi event, which is really unfair and probably contributes a lot to his unpopularity, okay sorry I’m starting to ramble...

Basically, all you need to know is that Charon is a grumpy grandpa who does literally nothing in the plot.

The Establishing Of The Grump Gramp This is... kinda necessary to know why this thing hit me so hard in the emotions? This is why I don’t think it would work as well if Mystery Wifi Event Flashback Person actually ISNT Charon. All we see of Charon in his VERY FEW non-optional dialogues is that he is vain, cynical, pompous, greedy and for some reason obsessed with talking like a complete tool. And he’s SO MUCH this that he doesn’t even have any loyalty to his fellow villains, he exists to be like.. The More. Everyone else is some degree of honorable dude doing what they do cos they believe in a good cause, Charon is that one teammate that’s too evil even for the rest of them. Or, like, at least too petty? He’s an eternally incompetant comic relief dumbass who never even has enough imagination to do anything genuinely evil, he’s somehow less dangerous than his morally ambiguous teammates! He’s just sitting here like ‘fuq yeh i luv bein evil cos i can swipe the pocket change outta dis vending machine’, then somehow it falls on him and shatters his old man spine. Meanwhile his boss is being all ‘I want to make a world of smiles!’ *collapses the universe into a black hole and literally summons poke-satan* So ANYWAY the relevant point is that you can see why he’s THE SINGLE MOST UNEXPECTED person to suddenly get a sympathetic backstory!

Some transcript of his tiny non-wifi-event dialogues for comparison of how much of an absolute prick this man be:

” It seems quite obvious to me, Charon, the genius even the boss recognizes.” "Humph. Saturn and even Cyrus fall to a mere child... Perhaps another option needs to be considered. One befitting the genius of Charon!" [This is basically his only dialogue in a normal game run, aside from expositioning a few things that were said by other people in the previous version.]

Postgame optional dungeon text:

“What do they see in Cyrus? Immature, overthinking buffoon. He goes through the trouble of assembling Team Galactic for what? Ultimately, he destroys his own creation for his ludicrous vision. It's no thanks to him that I have to struggle with the pieces." “The young can live with their dreams. I prefer to remain firmly in reality. And for that, money is paramount.” “ With this Magma Stone, I will awaken the legendary Heatran! I will control the volcano's eruptions to extort money by the millions! Fear me! “ [cue him being defeated offscreen in a cutscene by someone else] "...Uh, what are you saying? I know nothing! Extorting with Heatran? Merely the blathering of this harmless old man! All said in jest! Besides, among Team Galactic's Commanders, I was the most junior..." [Seriously, you don’t even get to see what Heatran even is! its just an optional scene to go back after he’s gone and catch the thing.]

So yeah he does literally nothing and all we know is that he’s a jerk and he betrays his evil team only to fail horribly at being his own villain also that he has a Rather Specific Speaking Pattern, which will come up later in linking him to that wifi event BUT ANYWAY literally the rest of the team walks away and leaves him to his fate cos he’s such a jerk literally Jupiter says he’s ‘not fun anymore’ literally a man dressed in a boulder costume bitchslaps him with a giant frog its like the biggest fuckin smackdown and the player didn’t even need to participate, he just self-destructed mid cutscene farewell two paragraphs of dialogue granddad, we will probably never remember you ever

B U T

~ The Transcipt Of The Fabled Wifi Event ~

Extra context: this was probably the worst handled of all the horribly handled wifi events. Makes sense at least, sinnoh was like the beta test for whether such a thing could actually be possible in this series. i’m glad they’re more accessable nowadays, but what sucks is that now we don’t seem to even get as many Actual Events, instead they’re just a plain gift of a pokemon via trade without a fun cutscene :( But yeah it was only accessable for a one month period when the game first released, and the item you got in the vent didnt have enough clues about where and how you were meant to use it in order to find the secret room, unless you already knew it was connected to Charon.

The item for the event is the Secret Key, which is somehow charmingly the least secret secret of all time

You take this to one random spot on a random wall in one of two separate Team Galactic HQs in this game, and the whole damn wall vanishes to reveal Charon’s Secret Lab/The Rotom Room

Here, you can turn Rotom into any of its new transformations. And then, completely optional, is a hidden backstory for this one terrible granddad! The notebook on the bottom desk explains how the transformations work, gameplay-wise, and also ‘hey this secret lab belongs to me specifically, Charon’ The notebook up to the top right on top of the box which you might not have noticed, and might have assumed would just contain more boring tutorials? Hoo boy dude, 99% OF THE EVENT DIALOGUE is in that thing! And you’d think a second hand flashback entirely through longwinded narration would be terrible but man somehow it really just worked for me. RIP my soul, cause of death: this

SO LETS GET GOING TO THE MEAT OF THIS POST, MY FRIEND

If you don’t feel like scrolling thru this textdump, I’d reccommend Chuggaaconroy’s excellent lets play of platinum, where he read out the journal here. (16:25, talks about the various wifi event failures first.) Or if you watch this earlier episode (17:15) you can see the whole mini-dungeon where you can catch Rotom in the first place, which isn’t necessary to understand all this but its still super cool. If you do feel like scrolling, here have the appropriate music, or the appropriate music: anime orchestrated version

+++

"It's an old notebook. There's no telling how old it is."

Our encounter was a sudden one. It was when I found my toy robot, one that I had earlier misplaced. At that instant, a Pokémon startlingly emerged from the lawn mower's motor! Clutching my robot, I stared, transfixed by the peculiar Pokémon.

The Pokémon hovered in the air, held aloft by a power unseen. As if curious and unafraid of my presence, it floated toward me. Crackling sounds accompanied it, as if from static electricity in the air. Remarkably, it seemed the Pokémon was the source of this power! In alarm, I flinched, certain that my face would be subjected to a shock. Much to my surprise, the Pokémon seemed to favor me with a smile.

Finally, I came to realize that the Pokémon only wished to be friends. I have decided to name this most wondrous Pokémon 'Rotom.' Simple though it may be, Rotom emerged to me from the motor of a lawn mower. Motor and Rotom... Surely the link is obvious?

Rotom is a Pokémon that is simply sensational. The fact that it can turn invisible is simply the beginning. What makes Rotom unique is its ability to enter and operate machinery!

Rotom and I became fast friends. We were perpetual companions. The electricity from its body forbade contact, however. We could not touch, let alone hug or hold hands, but we cared not. For we were bonded on a much deeper, incorporeal level.

A feeling of mischief got the better of me one day. Seeing Rotom hovering, I decided to startle it--normally I would not. Perhaps frightened, Rotom discharged power beyond its usual range. I fell, stunned, into the arms of unconsciousness...

When I came to, to my horror I realized that Rotom had disappeared. I searched high and low for my friend in dismay and desperation. 'Don't chastise yourself. The fault is mine. No harm done. Let us play as we always have.' Though my words poured out, my friend could not be found to hear them...

My search for Rotom carried me far from home. It was in the town's rubbish heap that I again found my old toy robot. Curiously, our eyes met, then the robot waved a hand as if in greeting. I knew then that I had found my lost friend. I ran to it and hugged Rotom tight, talking on and on.

The robot's eyes lit up happily as I held it. I'm certain that, within it, Rotom was emitting lots of electricity. Somehow, I felt I could understand Rotom's thoughts better than before. Also, I realized that we would remain friends throughout our lives...

"The notebook ends with this page..."

+++

+++

And this is his one and only trading card, and the biggest canon confirmation that he was indeed intended to be the mysterious author of Eighteen Pages Of How Much I Love To Hug My Friend Don’t tell me he doesn’t become INFINATELY more interesting with this knowledge!

Fuckin hell I would give my left foot to see an expanded plot upon this man’s secret good side seriously HOLY SHIT would you ever have imagined he cared about anyone, let alone THIS MUCH? Just sorry seriously i could talk for hours about this aaa dear god...

Oh and another minor transcript, you can get some dialogue from Rowan the first time you transform Rotom into one of its new forms. Its kinda interesting cos it gives some more Vague Potential Lore that inspires a cool headcanon that him and Charon might have known each other in the past? Cos he seems to know at least some details of that hidden journal...

"A Pokémon that slips into electric appliances, you say... Hmm... That is somewhat off from what I've heard about it. Hmm... This is what I've heard. Long ago, there was a Pokémon that merged with a toy robot. Should that Pokémon be recognized as a new species or not... Debates over the issue were about to start when they were rendered moot. The very topic of discussion--the Pokémon-infused robot--disappeared..."

Also that leads into another possible less-heartwarming interpretation of the whole thing that is actually EQUALLY interesting and ALSO makes Charon way more deep as a character! The idea that maybe this heartwarming thing is completely in the past, and nowadays he actually is 100% a horrible prick. Cos I mean, the one rotom you can find in the game is in that mysterious abandoned fancy old house, which is pretty heavily implied to be the notebook-writer’s childhood home where they met it. You can find a fragmented extra notebook page which seems to be the day before the start of the entries you can read in Charon’s lab. It says "Som...hing so pecu...r shou... make off ...ith the mot..." , which was confirmed to be "Something so peculiar should make off with the motor..."  aaaaaallll these years later in an episode of Pokemon Generations. So there’s the interpretation that maybe this rotom you can catch is the same one described in the journal, which makes you wonder why its all alone here if Charon supposedly cared about his friend so much. Perhaps he really was a decent guy once, but when he grew up to be such an evil prick he abandoned his pokemon? or maybe it saw what he became, and ran away? or maybe some other sort of mysterious thing happened to cause them to become separated? There’s so many potential interpretations of this whole thing, aaaa!! Why was such a tantalizing plot point wasted on a super hidden wifi!!!

But of course I like the version where trash gramp has one shred of redeemability in his soul and then hypothetically you could have a sidequest to reunite him with his tiny tangerine friend and convince him of the error of his ways and then EVERYONE CAN HUGS AGAIN

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

srsly its got the power to make me never stop thinking about this damn wifi event for all these fuckin years giv grandpa justice, dammit

[forestgreenbpd-blog]

Acceptable Losses | Green & Anabel

Plotted Ahead! | @ghostofemerald

Yeah, he pretty much knew in this day and age that his prospects of research were gonna kill him one day. He... pretty much knew. It was a dangerous business — even something as sweet and simple as research of all the damned things; but then again, it was his everyday hobby; it was his everyday life — going about the thick, tall grass and going up to par with whatever creature he’d find there. And it wasn’t just grass, either; no, that was the easy stuff; that was the stuff where, yeah, sure, a Skarmory or something could come springing out to say hello to you — or if you were unfortunate enough to find yourself in Unova’s Double Grass, then maybe even a Metagross or two if you were really unlucky, or having a really bad time (or, hell, if you just really wanted to wrangle with a fucking Metagross; more power to you). 

But it was the cave systems, the underwater where things really got fun. That’s where you’d encounter just about three Steelixes at once whose versions of hello were wrapping themselves around you, ready to squeeze the life out of you. And, yeah, for some reason, Legendaries of all things liked to hang around dark, deep areas — where nobody could find them, go figure. That’s where the real fun stuff happened — where you’d have to pack strong enough Pokemon, or enough Repels, or enough holy items to pray to whatever god you’d wish that you’d be able to get the hell out of your present situation to safety soon enough. 

Caves... yeah, caves; they were relentless, unforgiving sons of bitches where there was no safety net and no places to heal and where nobody would hear you screaming to your mama when things got tough, or even borderline deadly.

So of course that’s where Green decided to travel — in Alola, no less. It was a fun challenge, and thus far, Alola was... simply fascinating. It was perhaps the latest place in a long damn while where he found himself able to grin ear to ear on a regular basis — where he actually had the motivation and want to get up and explore, take in the fresh air and see all that this crazy fucking region had to offer. And by now, he’d wanted nothing more than to explore the deepest, darkest, scariest, and worst parts of the Alolan wilderness — and what better than within the grittiest, strongest area of Poni Island?

He’d found his way to a place called Resolution Cave by then, rumored to hold tough trainers and tough Pokemon, sure enough to give any daring trainer a real challenge. Sad part to say about that was that those sorts of things were... massively hard to come by — what, with Green’s team of Pokemon all nearing their nineties, things were... hardly a challenge these days. It even got to the point where he’d just about gotten tired of Golbats and Dugtrios (yes, even if they were the incredibly amazing ones with the fantastic hair) that he was practically Max Repelling his way through the area until he would... maybe? Somehow? Find something more interesting? Hopefully? He wasn’t even quite sure he would find something of that caliber, frankly; many of these caves did have an end, for sure — namely, somewhere at the very bottom that you’d have to backtrack all the way out of; it was annoying as hell — but very little of them actually had something worthwhile at the very bottom, at the very end, where there was nowhere left to go. And why should they? They were fucking caves, for Christ’s sake; did they need some fantastic treasure at the bottom of it worth finding? Did every clearing in a forest have some magical treasure chest filled with junk beyond your wildest imagination?

No. It was nature; nature did whatever the fuck it wanted.

But either way, Green was determined to find some sort of end to this place — not insomuch that he’d wish to find this fantastic treasure that couldn’t possibly exist; but rather, he just wanted to find it to mark the end of his need and want to explore any further; finding the end would be able to tell him that there would be nothing more to discover, and that his curious mind could finally rest.

Well. You know what the fuck they say about curiosity nowadays — whether or not there’s that cute secondary phrase that society had been hiding for dozens of years to try to discourage kids from sating their natural curiosity and try to reel them into mundanity — you know the one: ‘curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back’? Well. Well well welly well well. Green only hoped to God, Christ, Arceus, or who the fuck ever that he’d find enough satisfaction in his growing curiosity that he’d be able to come back alive from this one.

His Pokemon were exhausted, right? Just because they so happened to be stronger than the other Pokemon in any part of the cave didn’t mean they wouldn’t get tired from doing the same old shit over and over. So he decided, for the time being, to return them to their Pokeballs so that they could rest, wandering around the cave with nothing but his Max Repels, khaki shorts, inappropriately-circumstantial sunglasses, and fine ass to save him should anything really dangerous come his way. But see, here’s the thing — he’d been exploring around this cave for fuck-knows how long right about then; probably an hour; two hours; he didn’t even know anymore; he only knew he was in there for much longer than he could bear anymore. At that point, he wasn’t even worried that anything new would sneak up on him anymore; it was just the same thing, over and over and over — Golbat, Dugtrio, mediocre trainer. Rinse and rinse and repeat.

So by the time he got to a very different mouth in the cave — a new, unmarked entrance that he hadn’t seen before — he was... hardly expecting anything different. Just Golbat, Dugtrio, a few trainers; Max Repel the fucking trainers in the face, why didn’t he. But no. He’d entered in, looking around a bit, and that’s when he just about realized where he was. This fabled end. The end of the cave — nothing else left to see. It was just a... a long, winding tunnel, with nothing at the end of it.

Or so he thought, like a dumbass.

His eyes weren’t even curious anymore, by the time he was looking around; simply alert for the sheer inkling possibility — no matter how small — that there could be something new around here that he might have missed, or that only lurked around in this neck of the woods — err... cave. God, he was so tired. But it wasn’t before long that he was woken right the fuck up by a deep, harsh rumbling further within the same room — the thud, thud, thud growing more powerful and rumbling some of the loose rock right from the cave walls and ceiling. Green’s eyes grew wide then, curiosity certainly returning the color to his eyes, as well as sheer fear, above it all. And how could he have missed it? Maybe it was due to his tire, or due to his lack of particular care for anything this cave had to do with anymore, but in the center of that room, backing out from the rock that obscured his view, was... a girl? Yeah, no, he wasn’t being stupid; there was a girl there, with long, lavender hair and she was in a suit. The girl certainly looked like she meant business of sorts and — wait. Was... that... Anabel? Salon Maiden Anabel? With her hair grown out and... who knows, there for business in Alola? What the fuck was she doing there?

Yes, Green had met the girl a few times — he’d met pretty much every important figure, from Gym Leaders, Elite Four, professors, and the like that held down the Battle Frontier. Anabel was... among one of them. She was an acquaintance, at most, having met her for business, just to check up on a few things for the sake of research. It helped a little that she was participating in the Battle Tree campaign as one of the elites that the kids could battle. He’d known that she was there, then, but... he never really dared to gather what exactly she was doing; after all, he’d assumed everyone was there for the sole business of the Battle Tree — like Cynthia and, uh... that one kid... Wally. What Cynthia and Wally were there for; he never really imagined that... Anabel was there for something else, and it only baffled him that now, she was here. In this fucking cave, with these thuds slowly approaching her, and she seemed none too happy that they were that close to her.

His exhaled shakily as the loud thuds gave way to crunches, low growls, ethereal, without a precise name or voice or Pokemon for it to belong to, soon revealing two long claws like mandibles to the jaw of a great Pokemon and its gaping blue maw, its large body revealing to be its entire body, much larger and more imposing than Green ever would’ve imagined; hell, the thing’s entire mouth... torso... thing was bigger than about three Greens put together; Buu-Buu-chan would be lunch for that thing. And it was coming right for her as she backed up with precautionary steps away from that thing.

He himself took a step back with a shaky breath, reminiscent of a nervous laugh — quiet and fearful and instinctual all the same, his breath spilling out “Hah... hahaha... what the fuck...” at the sight of it. “Buddy... Jesus Christ... what... are you...?” He murmured, backing up and away, slowly, quietly, hoping that, whatever it was, it was far too dumb or blind or something to be able to see who he was now fully assuming was Anabel, and that she’d be able to slip away, unseen, count her lucky stars pretend this never happened. Who knows? She might’ve seen the damn thing, it didn’t quite see her yet, and she was biding her sweet time to be able to get away from it unseen, right? That it wasn’t coming towards her. It was just... blind or stupid or its sights were set too high to really see her, and she was taking it low and slow to be able to find the perfect opportunity to turn tail and run.

So much for wishful thinking, right?

He wasn’t quite sure what part of this thing was its eyes; it seemed to have two sets of them, which, well, didn’t bode well for his whole blind theory. The thing was so massive, so terrifying and... so strange, he couldn’t even quite say for sure that it was a Pokemon that he was looking at. No; he... he was looking at something alright; and that something hunched itself down with its giant fucking mouth that could chew either Green or Anabel alive for dinner, and... oh. Dear God. As it turned the corner, and she backed up down the corner all the same, a few dozen feet from where Green stood, it finally looked right down at her, and she froze in her place. 

It dared to open up its mouth wider, whatever the hell that garbage disposal thing was at the back of its throat gnashing and its two mandible arms clamping menacingly, and the thing cried out in a voice out of a science fiction movie, loud enough to push Green and her back a space or two, the room shaking and crumbling slightly further in the notification that the thing did, in fact, see her, and wanted her dead.

And you bet your sweet ass Green screamed right back — though it was out of... sheer fucking terror more than anything else; not necessarily that he was trying to... one-up the thing or anything? He wasn’t even quite sure he could, at this point.

And sure, yeah, his first instinct was to turn right on his heels, at the great, gigantic thing that was now only feet behind him, and to run for his goddamn life. But dammit, Anabel was right there, right in the path of that thing’s fury. She’d be killed. He shook his head as his fingers curled into a few locks of his hair above his forehead, giving more of that nervous laughter that was quickly growing maniacal, because honestly. Really. His plan and his idea was... simply insane.

Yes, certainly, in Green’s field, he’d imagined quite the few ways he’d die. Caves caving in were... among them. Death by Steelix. Poison-types galore. But this? Dying from a whatever the fuck this was swallowing him whole (or not whole; he didn’t want to imagine that prospect)... was not one of them. But he would be damned if he was going to let that be Anabel’s reality. 

He’d. Be. Damned.

He reached down onto his belt for one of his trusty Pokeballs, grabbing Hara-Hara’s familiar Pokeball off of its loop, giving the top of it a quick kiss for good luck (to Hara-Hara, him, and Anabel, all the same), and he finally decided to cry out, “Hey! Buddy! You giant, fat fuck with six arms too many! Garbage truck — yeah, I’m talking to you! You wanna dance, big man? You wanna dance? Huh? Well why don’t you take one someone your... uh. Fuck. Why don’t you take me on instead, huh? Instead of the girl? I got a much fatter ass and I’m ready to party, buddy! C’mon now! Go, Hara-Hara!” He cried, sending out his Pokeball to reveal his familiar and trusty Charizard, dwarfing in comparison to the large black creature’s size. Without hesitation, he reached up to his Mega Ring secured on his wrist, activation Hara-Hara’s Charizardnite Y, and transforming his form into a much greater and more powerful being — hopefully enough to be up to snuff with whatever the shit this thing was. “You and me, buddy! Let’s dance!”

[lucanogis]

HotaruLuca and 5, 10, 11, 14, 16 & 18?

thank you so much here]

- Who is the one who points with their chin?

There were many things Hotaru Imai adored about having twins. 

First of all, she had created humans using only her body and a little bit of input from her husband. Second of all, she had, as per usual, managed to exceed all expectations by delivering not one child but two. They were adorable little balls of mostly poop, tears and tiny fluffs of hair and she loved them. But. But. But they had created this new game in their household called “What on earth is my husband trying to tell me” and she wasn’t very good at it.

Hotaru narrowed her eyes as she watched Luca balance two children on his shoulders while simultaneously holding their napkin in his hand and their plushie in his mouth. 

“This is a bad idea,” she told him. “Just…logistically speaking.” 

Of course she could have gotten up to help but then again she had carried them for nine months and birthed them for what had felt like the rest of eternity so really, it was her time to sit on the sofa, sketch in her notebook and watch endless re-runs of bad reality TV. 

“Mhmmmm,” Luca said. His chin jutted forward, apparently pointing at something close to her. With a sigh, Hotaru looked around. She picked up the remote. 

“This?”

He shook his head. Hotaru picked up a pillow, eyeing it with pretend interest.

“Is this what you want?”

Luca shook his head again, this time more violently. Their daughter, obviously displeased by the sudden movement, made a small unhappy sound at the back of her throat. He immediately reverted back to rocking back and forth on his feet soothingly while shooting angry glares at Hotaru. 

She snickered before reaching over to grab the unused diaper on the table next to her and throwing it towards him. They both watched as it sailed through the air with a beautiful arc before dropping to the floor. Luca rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, letting the plushie fall to the ground.

“I hate you a lot,” he declared. “Really, I mean it. You’re the worst.” 

“But I’m the love of your life,” Hotaru cooed. She made a hand gesture, knowing her home automation system would pick up on it and dispatch a robot to clean up the clutter on the floor. Then she got up from the couch and walked up to him, taking their son. His small head rested on her chest and she could feel his heartbeat flutter against her chin. He was perfect, she thought. They were perfect. She had made two utterly perfect things. 

As Hotaru looked up, she could see that a small smile had found its way onto Luca’s face. He leaned forward, careful not to jostle the baby and pressed his lips to hers. 

“That you are,” he said softly.

Not just two perfect things, Hotaru corrected herself in her mind, as she felt his warmth, the steadiness of his love for her. Two babies and her marriage. Three. 

- Who is the one who likes to quote movies, books, and songs in conversations?

“So I’m trying out this new thing,” Luca warned her as they waited outside before entering the gala. Hotaru felt suspicion rise up from within her. 

“What thing?,” she asked. It was a warm spring night, they were in Paris, signs pointed towards an evening of expensive food and dancing and yet…Luca trying out new things usually involved her having to shoot a bunch of people after he had gotten himself into a ludicrous amount of trouble and although shooting people was an enjoyable part-time, her dress didn’t exactly allow for mortal combat.

“I’m trying to fit in with the rich people,” he said. “Just pretend I’m always like this.”

Before she had a chance to ask another question, he’d grabbed her hand and pulled her into the mansion in front of them, already wearing a winning smile on his lips. 

It took her about five minutes to figure out what new thing he had been talking about. She was talking to an older man, one who had invested considerable funds into her company. They were discussing pricing issues in the tech world when Luca cleared his throat and went:

“Oh, it’s a shame. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.“

Her investor blinked. Hotaru sent her husband the most scathing look she could come up with while also playing the part of “genius inventor not currently looking to murder a man”. 

“Ah…certainly. If you’ll excuse me…” He scampered away, clearly confused, leaving both of them alone. When he was well out of earshot, Hotaru turned to Luca and raised her brow at him.

“Please don’t tell me you’re trying to appear more poised by quoting Oscar Wilde in conversation,” she said.

“I have more quotes prepared,” Luca said in way of an answer. “Most of them are from The Lion King but I figured not everyone needs Mufasa’s wisdom. So I branched out. Hey, do you want to hear a quote from the Lion King?”

“No,” she answered immediately. He ignored her, shockingly. 

“Look Hotaru,” he said, making a sweeping gesture towards the rest of the gala and grinning. “Everything the light touches is your kingdom.” 

She couldn’t keep herself from smiling at that. 

- Who is the one to burst out into song randomly?

“So…,” Natsume asked. “Is she drunk? Is this Hotaru drunk? Really?”

“Well, what were you expecting?,” Luca asked. They were both sitting on a pool table, watching their inebriated significant others doing karaoke in the middle of the bar. Except of course karaoke in this case meant singing 80s songs without anyone listening and no karaoke machine in sight. 

“Some kind of ‘Good Will Hunting’ moment where she uses a table as a blackboard and writes down complex mathematical equations I guess?” 

“Yeah but see…regular sober Hotaru already does that,” Luca explained. “I can never throw away the scarps of paper I find in our apartment because they might have the cure to cancer on them. Drunk Hotaru is just a giant dork who really loves ABBA.” 

In unison, they turned towards Mikan and Hotaru again. Hotaru was using a chair as a prop-guitar, screaming more than singing the lyrics to ‘Mamma Mia” at the top of her lungs while Mikan swayed back and forth. 

“I can’t believe the Ice Queen is a cute drunk,” Natsume said, stunned.

“You know who else is?,” Luca asked, pouring both of them another shot. “You. So come on, drink up. I really want to join in as soon as they get to Dancing Queen and you won’t give your best performance unless you’re at least mildly buzzed.” 

“I object,” Natsume grumbled, but Luca had already left him. He was doing some kind of interpretive dance with his girlfriend, hopping up and down. With a sigh, Natsume downed his drink. Time to embarrass himself with the people he loved most. 

And if he woke up the next morning with a sore throat and no voice then who cared? That was just the price one had to pay for art. 

- Who is the one who played/plays an obscure instrument just to be different?

"I just feel like-”

Hotaru raised her hand to stop him. “No.”

“But-”

“No.”

“Buuut-”

“No. Just because I learned to play a balalaika when I was stranded in 17th century Russia with my brother doesn’t mean I want to form a folk band with you, Mikan and our children. I am an inventor. I am a business woman. I am not Mumford and Sons’ asian cousin. No.”

Luca bumped into her with his shoulder, twisting his mouth into a pout. She sighed, setting her notebook aside to look at him. 

“But we could do concerts,” he said. “We could heal people’s minds with our beautiful music. We could make extra money.”

“Tell you what,” Hotaru said, “We can form a band if I go bankrupt one day. Deal?”

Luca let his head drop to her lap and gave a her sad, puppy-eyed look. 

“You’re destroying all my dreams,” he declared. Hotaru petted his hair.

“Personally,” she said, “I’d call it ‘saving your reputation’.”

- Who is the one who likes to rewatch the same movies?

“Please,” Luca pleaded, melodramatically dropping to his knees in front of the DVD. “Please don’t pick The Matrix again. I’ve seen that movie a hundred times now. I get it, you’re into the red pill/blue pill dilemma. But Hotaru, beautiful Hotaru. Chose something else.”

“What do you want me to say?,” Hotaru said from her place on the couch. “I want to watch it to figure out whether or not I could construct a Matrix. It’s the great tech question of our time and I, as an obvious tech innovator, am looking to answer it.”

His eyes narrowed. Marriage had apparently gifted Luca Nogi with a new Alice: The ability to tell whether or not she was telling the truth. 

“That,” he said. “Is a clear lie. You could make a Matrix with both of your hands tied behind your back and me tickling you. It’s not even a question. You’re just into Keanu Reeves and don’t want to admit it. ”

Hotaru tapped her lip with her index finger. 

“Keanu Reeves,” she said at length. “May or may not be another one of the many reasons I enjoy the Matrix.”

Luca sighed, getting up from his place on the floor to settle in next to her on the couch. 

“What, have you given up on protesting my taste in movies,?” Hotaru asked.

He laced their fingers together and picked up the remote.

“What do you want me to say? He’s pretty dreamy. I would leave you for him. I mean, have you seen the guy? He’s clearly immortal and-” Hotaru kicked him in the shin. 

“If anything,” she said. “I’m the one running away with him. I’m rich and beautiful.” 

“You’re also a mean lady and his soulful eyes will pick up on that immediately,” Luca said teasingly.

“Keanu Reeves has high standards. You’re not good enough in bed to get him.” 

“Oh yeah?,” he nipped at her ear. “I bet I can disprove that claim.” His lips wandered down her neck and she could feel her breath quickening. 

“You can certainly try,” she whispered, sneaking one hand under his shirt.

Keanu Reeves performed ninja tricks onscreen in front of an audience of zero but Hotaru couldn’t find it in herself to care. 

- Who is the one that writes on their arm to remind themselves to do something?

They were laying side by side on the king sized bed of their honeymoon suite when she saw the dark ink on his skin. Outside, the sun was starting to set and the sky was a flaming gold, a soft red, an inviting blue all at once. 

Hotaru reached out, softly tracing the outlines with one finger, his blue eyes following her movement as she went over his palm, to his wrist and up his arm. When their eyes met, she could see the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks.

“I wasn’t sure,” Luca told her, “whether I would remember all that I wanted to say. I didn’t want to miss anything important, so I wrote my vows down. Ended up winging it though but hey, at least I came prepared.”

She squinted and shifted closer, her bare chest brushing his as she peered at the writing. 

“What does it say?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Luca joked. “I have to save a few of my good, eternally cheesy line for the rest of our lives. A regular eighty year old woman might not notice I’m recycling love declarations but you? You would notice right away. Besides-” He kissed her, lingering on her lips for a few seconds before drawing away again. There was a smile on his face and she knew, without seeing it, that it mirrored the one she was wearing.

“It’s just variations on a theme,” Luca said. 

“What’s the theme?,” Hotaru asked. “Financial security? Tax breaks?”

He laughed. “Yeah, I really wanted to talk about taxes in front of our friends and family. No. It’s love, you giant menace.”

Luca grabbed her finger, using it to point at the now smudged words on his arm.

“This one says that you’re going to change the world and I can’t believe I’m blessed enough to get to watch you do it.”

Together, their hands wandered. 

“This one,” he said, “is about how much I adore the face you make whenever you get one of your big ideas. You squish your nose together like a bear that smelled something delicious. And this one’s about about how I’m not going to let you forget that I have your back, always. And this one’s about how I’m going to love you no matter what but that’s a given. Oh and this one,” he pointed at the one on his wrist, “is the first thing you ever said to me.”

“What was it,?” she asked. Luca laughed. “I was standing next to you in line at breakfast and you said: ’Get out of my way’,” he quoted from memory. “You know what I answered?”

“No,” she said.  

“‘I don’t think so, Imai’. I’m pretty sure I got shot for that.

Hotaru felt a burning sensation in her eyes and she turned away, hiding her face in the crook of his shoulder. His hand came up to rest on her back, lightly tracing up and down. At length, she turned back. Outside, night had fallen and the stars had come out bright and clear. 

“I’m glad,” Hotaru told him.

“About what,?” Luca asked. 

“I’m glad you didn’t get out of my way,” she said. “Right next to me is where I want you to be, now and…for whatever’s ahead.” 

She could see the glint of the wedding ring on his finger when he reached up to brush a strand of hair out of her face.

“That’s good then,” Luca said softly. “Because right next to you is where I want to be for life.”

[chilly-territory]

An interview with the character designer for IBO, Chiba Michinori, from March 2016 issue of Animage (characters are designed by him and Itou Yuu who did rough sketches)

ITOU YUU'S SKETCHES ARE DRAWINGS OF AN OLD SCHOOL MANGAKA

--The story is approaching its climax, so allow us to ask how do you like it so far? Chiba: When I watch the finished video I find quite entertaining. To be honest with you, I hardly read the scenario in advance. Due to that, I can enjoy as a viewer how the characters turn out or be sad about the death of a character that I went through pains creating (*chuckle*) This time Itou Yuu-san's original sketches were really good, so I simply continued the work he started by adjusting them to be suitable for drawing in an anime. Itou-san created the rough sketches of many minor characters as well. Though I created some, too, like random extras in the city or when director Nagai requested something specific.

--How do you feel about peculiarities and appeal of Itou-san's drawings? Chiba: To me personally, they're filled with appealing fierceness. Nowadays, many mangakas are adopting the anime style, don't you think? Because they are people who grew up watching anime or playing anime-influenced games, and now they draw their own manga. But Itou-san's drawings aren't from that category, the feel about them is that of the orthodox school of manga drawing, and I think it's great. They let you feel the fun of converting a mangaka's peculiar flavor into anime, and I enjoy it quite a lot.

--What do you pay special attention to when adapting Itou-dan's drawings into anime designs? Chiba: Well, take hair, for example, a mangaka would usually draw a lot of lines and strands, but it's a difficult task to make it all move for the modern anime, so the lines have to be adjusted without the overall impression changing. You have to always think about the ease of drawing for the animated footage.

--I have a feeling the characters have extremely peculiar hair style or eyes though. Chiba: Itou-san's designs had those recognizable peculiarities that make the characters who they are at the rough draft stage already, and even if those particular details are to move on footage, they shouldn't be too much of a problem to animate.

--Could you please tell us in detail how you designed the characters for the anime? Chiba: For starters we'd had several discussions on Mikazuki and Orga's character designs, and I had a bit of trouble figuring out what it should be. With Mikazuki, I have a habit to emphasize his eyes or draw him tight faced, so at the beginning he looked like he glared more. But after the director had said it wasn't what was needed, I redid the design to be what it is now, with the character striking you as flat. He has a lot inside but just doesn't show it on his face often. Anime these days tends to give characters a lot of facial expressions, but Mikazuki hardly has any amusing ones to speak of.

--Surprisingly, there is a lot of uniqueness about body types and clothed silhouettes in the show. Chiba: That's where Itou-san's sketches really shine. For example, Orga, Akihiro and Shino are all big, but Itou-san gave me his instructions on which direction their body types were supposed to lean as early as the rough draft stage, so I incorporated that into the designs. For Mikazuki, too, I knew from itou-san's sketch that his limbs are rather big compared to his body size. Itou-san points out in writing at the rough draft stage what to be careful about in a picture.

--Then, what about Orga's design? Chiba: I had a lot of trouble with him, too. According to Itou-san's commentary to the sketches, Orga's eyes were supposed to be pretty, but mouth - not so much (*chuckle*) That's why his mouth is always slightly downturned and never cleancut, but that's what makes Orga Orga. Anime tends to iron things out and draw everything pretty, but little details like that that move away from the standard is why Itou-san's characters are so entertaining. Orga is not just cool, you can also feel a prankster air about him, I think. Also, Orga's forelock is peculiar, too. It bends at a sharp angle that almost makes it a weapon (*chuckle*) Draw this, and everyone will know it's Orga, it's a good and easy to see mark, in my opinion.

--Orga tends to make faces where he closes his right eye, obscured by that bang, quite often. Chiba: That was something that was in Itou-san's sketches, too, and that's where the director picked it up, I suppose. For the first episode we had the director's instructions that Orga was to do that. I'm really glad that when Itou-san creates his characters, he gives such a deep thought to what kind of life they've come to live. Nothing less from a person creating a tale.

NUDITY IS TEKKADAN'S UNIFORM?!

--Tell us about the female characters like Kudelia and Atra. Chiba: With Kudelia... you can't cut corners when drawing her, so it's quite a pain (*wry chuckle*) As per the director's words, this show's characters in most part are rough and mud-smelling. He said he didn't care about good looks, so I thought I'd have an easy time, but Kudelia must be drawn beautiful and Atra cute. Kudelia has somewhat old-fashioned features, and that Araki-production feel is what I was being mindful about when drawing her (*chuckle*)

--Atra, on the other hand, seems to have a more modern feel to her. Chiba: For Atra, with her hair style like a small animal's ears and her baggy clothes, Itou-san's rough sketch notes had "weaselly" in her descrption, so I just went with that (*chuckle*) Also, at first, the premise was that it's cold on Mars, so Atra's clothes are remnants of that. In the end though, that premise went away somewhere.

--The characters fought the battle on Mars half-naked, didn't they. Chiba: That, too, wasn't there from the start. We had a talk about if we should have the characters wear something while in the cockpit, but then it would be annoying to dress and undress them every time for sortieing and it might end up half-cocked, so after a lot of consideration, we just decided that the trouble wasn't worth it (*chuckle*) There are few anime works that depict muscle these days, so maybe it's a pain to draw them. But it's not like our demands are that detailed in that area, we just leave it to the animators to decide how ripped a person of a specific build should be. Good if it's your forte, but those who draw may choose.

--I feel the fact that Mikazuki and the rest fight half-naked expresses their roughness. Chiba:  Well, they're not on par with Apache Baseball Team (from anime "Apache Yakyuugun"), but they, too, have that air about them that nudity is their uniform (*chuckle*) Although we avoid showing them being uncool or smelly, they're not your typical glittery modern anime characters either. And I like it better that way. Everyone mostly has their hair short, and it's been a while since I've worked with that kind of characters, it's nice for a change. Although I have to say that every anime where characters fight with their hair all silky and smooth must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, so it's not all bad either. With this show, the vein I work in is quite different, so I have a lot of fun.

--The show does have a chubby character like Biscuit, I suppose (*chuckle*) Chiba: Oh yes, Biscuit. Nice to have him (*chuckle*) The Yellow Ranger from good ol' super sentai is a necessary character, after all. I think Tekkadan's appeal lies in them having all kinds of characters.

--Are the Tekkadan members based on Itou-san's original designs, too? Chiba: Yes, they are. Out of the main members, the only ones I created are Dante and Chad. I only knew Chad's name was supposed to be Chad, and that was my only clue when I created him with a chad's image in mid (*chuckle*) With Dante, too, I didn't really know anything about him at the design stage, and I only learned that he specializes in electronic warfare after watching a few episodes (*chuckle*)

--Tell us about Gjallarhorn's McGillis and Gaelio. Chiba: Those two, too, are mostly designed in accordance with Itou-san's rough sketches. Only, with McGillis, his good physique with wide thick chest reminding an inverted triange was per the director's instructions. And Gaelio was to have your usual smart feel about him, so it's possible to tell them apart. McGillis' habit of fiddling with his forelock is something that the director added to the storyboard of episode 1.

--They're the characters that catch the eye with their gorgeousness, very different from Tekkadan's mud-cacked feel. Chiba: True. When McGillis and Gaelio's characters got colored, someone mentioned that now they started to feel like legit Sunrise anime characters (*chuckle*) Well, a marked contrast is not a bad thing. The show has a lot of characters, and each of them stands on their own like they’re supposed to. I think that variety is what makes it so fun.

CHARACTER DESIGN IS SOMETHING TO EXPAND ON AND ADD TO

--How deep are you involved in the original animation directing? Chiba: A little, since there's still some work left on the setting and the director requests me to watch certain scenes of certain episodes from time to time. For you to understand, for example, episode 11 where Almiria has made her first appearance. I'm often requested to watch the scenes where characters debut. The scene where Naze was shown on the monitor screen went through my check, too. Well, when it's something that can be fixed just by the animation direction, I pass it quick, since what I'm watching is that a character gets the right feel about them. Come to think of it, there was this old man, Orcus, he was a character I created, but it surprised me when his scenes ended up in my workload. Well, I touched them up anyway, thinking all that while that he's not even an important character to spend so much time on (*chuckle*)

--You're also involved with drawing characters for the openings and endings, aren't you? Chiba: Yes, I am. Although I make minimal corrections for them since a lot of skillful staff are involved with creating the OPs and EDs. I'm the type to prefer not to touch others' drawings when they're up to par, you see (*chuckle*) I want to give a chance to the good stuff. It goes without saying that it doesn't apply to something that's conspicuous in a bad way, but to me it's all good as long as a character stays themselves within the work. Like with Itou-san's original sketches (*wry smile*), character design is just the minimal tentative draft. It's something you're encouraged to expand on and add to for the actual animation, is what my position is.

[transformersaesthetics]

The Aesthetics of Transformers

Hello Tumblr! That time of the month again. Unfortunately, things have been really busy around here lately, and I was unable to get to Beast Wars 1998, so you’ll have to wait another couple weeks for Transmetals to hit the scene. However, today I instead present an article on what makes transformers aesthetically valuable. Enjoy!

    What do we find enjoyable about Transformers? 

I’m sure many of us have grappled with that question at one point or another. That day when you buy a figure and realize you don’t particularly care about it, or when you look at an old figure that once was a favorite and feel nothing in particular. Why do I do this? What keeps me coming back? 

    The answer for me is that it was, and is, fun, even though I sometimes lose sight of that. Transformers offer me a simple, pure joy in the appreciation of something cool, or beautiful, or technically impressive, and I find that immensely fulfilling. In a way, it’s the best sort of engagement with life. 

    For a long time, I was at a rough place in my life personally, and it manifested itself in how I engaged with my Transformers. I was obsessed with the idea that aesthetic merit could be reduced to specific features of a toy that we found valuable, and that I could collect all toys that demonstrated a certain level of those characteristics. 

    However, as I pursued that goal, it became more and more apparent that something was wrong with that conception of Transformers. One of the more obvious flaws was that one of the figures I had used to establish my exacting standards in the first place, Thrilling 30 Springer, no longer met them. Indeed, no toy did or could, because no toy is literally perfect. 

    I think I’m at a better spot in my life right now, and I think, once again, that’s reflected in my relationship with my transformers. I’ve come to realize that while, in some ways, I was correct about aesthetic worth being derived from specific qualities of a toy that we value, I was also wrong. I was wrong in the sense that there is no such thing as the perfect figure, one that completely has every single quality of aesthetic merit to the maximum degree. This is often because whether or not a figure demonstrates a certain characteristic is a matter of judgement and taste. Is ROTF Leader Optimus a bad figure with an annoying backpack, or is it the best representation of Movie Optimus? 

     There are many different ways that transformers can be enjoyed, even for a single individual; we all have our own constellation of aesthetic values. I think that we look at aesthetic criteria for a figure, and, if we like it emotionally or because we chose to or whatever, we can overlook the imperfections or even outright flaws. In this essay, I want to talk about a few of the things that make a Transformer beautiful, as a celebration of beauty and joy, and also to give some insight into how I think about these figures.

I think one of the greatest aesthetic virtues a transformer can have is the simple one of being ‘cool’. I always really liked trains, and I thought it was cool how Classics Astrotrain turned into a train and a space shuttle. I think the P-38 Lightning is a dumb plane and I love it to death, and for that reason, 2010 Highbrow is one of my favorite figures. Cool is intentionally pretty vaguely defined here. It’s really anything that can make you go ‘oh, that’s neat’ when you look at a figure, and obviously that’s going to differ from person to person, based on what your other interests and values are. 

Another thing that makes Transformers desireable is screen accuracy. Until fairly recently, most of the primary Transformers media has been television or movies. That means that we are attached to most of our favorite characters because of their presentation in these media. It makes sense that toys that more closely correspond to the tv representation of a character would have more aesthetic merit. This is especially true for cases like Arcee or Elita-1, where for years there was nothing approaching a screen accurate toy. Something I personally enjoy is toys that are so screen accurate it looks like they just hopped off the screen. Some notable examples for me are the first Transmetal toys from Beast Wars (sometimes, looking at you Waspinator), Transformers: Animated as a line, and a few specific figures like Studio Series Blackout. 

    Transformers are, at their core, action figures, so we want them to be able to do actiony things, like having a full range of articulation or being nicely poseable. Sometimes, of course, it is impossible to include a waist joint or some such and still have the figure transform, so I think the standard for articulation in Transformers is somewhat lower than in other action figure hobbies. 

For me, the normal range of articulation is ball joints or equivalents at the shoulders and hips,and elbows and knees. In this day and age I would say bicep and thigh swivels are also standard, but I do have a couple figures that I really enjoy who don’t have either one or the other, generally because of cleverness with ball joints at the elbow or knee. Head articulation of some sort is nice and pretty common, but again, I do have a few figures with restricted head articulation and it doesn’t bother me so much. Waist and ankle tilts are gravy in almost all cases, though we’re getting a lot more ankles nowadays. 

    Kibble generally refers to parts of a Transformer’s alternate mode that are visible in the robot mode, or vice versa. Sometimes, like with G1 Seeker designs, it’s pretty cool to see a robot made out of parts of f-14, especially stuff like the wings. Other times, like with Movie Blackout, the entire alternate mode ends up on the back of the toy and causes sad feelings the world over. Kibble can also significantly restrict articulation and playability, as with Beast Wars Rampage. 

I tend not to mind kibble so much if it’s subtle, or used deliberately for a cool effect, like on the seekers. Even somewhat more egregious stuff like POTP Predaking or Movie Dropkick doesn’t bug me that much, although it used to. Honestly, shellforming a la TLK Berzerker doesn’t even bug me that much, although it’s self evidently rough. What does get to me is when a toy stops being a toy because of how kibbly it is, like the aforementioned Movie Blackout. Now, I still own that toy and enjoy it, and others like it, but I don’t find that part of it aesthetically pleasing. Of course, this is not to say that kibble is bad or being overly kibbly disqualifies a toy from being good. 

    One of my favorite things about Transformers are when the transformation schemes surprise me. TR Kup, Generations WFC Optimus, Studio Series Dropkick, and 2010 Terradive all are some of my favorite figures, entirely because their transformation schemes are so clever and novel. Of course, I’m also a sheer complexity junky, and I go out of my way to collect toys explicitly because they are complex. Examples include RID Sideburn or ROTF Mixmaster. I really enjoy it when the toy I’m holding is technically impressive for one reason or another, be that it used all of its pieces very well in both modes, was astoundingly intricate, or had a specific neat trick or device it employed. 

Transformers is fairly unique in that there are comparatively few totally generic characters. Each toy has a personality associated with it, even if it’s just the bio card that came with it. The brand has been introducing and exploring characters for close to 35 years now, sometimes more well, and sometimes less well, but undeniably, characters are a huge part of why we involve ourselves with the brand.

 Waspinator is iconic for his comic relief, as is Skybyte. MTME Megatron is one of the most interesting characters I’ve seen in anything ever. Even characters who get comparatively little screen time, like Astrotrain, have dedicated followings, because transformers often does background characters quite well.  I myself own lots of figures I wouldn’t otherwise, simply because I enjoy their characters. To that end, one of the reasons a figure can have aesthetic merit is that it represents a character you like. 

    Something I personally enjoy in a figure is when I’m shocked to discover that it exists at all. A huge example of this is 2010 Highbrow, who I mentioned earlier. I remember clearly, I was just going down a rabbit hole on the wiki when I suddenly stumbled upon a P-38 Lightning-esque transformer, and my first reaction was disbelief. There was no way HasTak made such an obscure figure. But they did, and it’s awesome. A more recent example is TR Gnaw. I was stunned that they were making a Sharkticon toy again after so long. I had sincerely never expected that to occur, but I was so glad that it had. I simply love discovering a transformer in some corner of some obscure line that turns into some alt mode that nothing else does, or something else that, against all the odds, exists. 

    As we touched upon briefly in the “It’s just cool” section, something that can make a transformer valuable is that we just think the alt mode is neat. It can be nothing more sophisticated than “I’ve always liked squids” that draws someone to BW Claw Jaw. Honestly, one of the coolest things about transformers for me is the sheer depth of alt modes that has been covered in the history of the brand. Odds are, if you can name something, there’s a TF of it. Specific Japanese bullet trains? You bet. A WW2 style bomber? Absolutely. A wooly mammoth? Yep, and that one’s an Optimus Prime. There’s even a Soundwave that turns into an Ipad, and a Megatron that turns into an alas undersized nike shoe. 

We can also value transformers because that specific figure is important to us. My RID Ro-tor is that way for me. My uncle bought it for me, years ago, and it was one of my first transformers. I thought it was just the coolest thing, and I spent hours pretending he was an autobot, because I noticed they didn’t have as many fliers and wanted to fill the gap. Every time I look at that toy, I think of my uncle a little, and I’d never want to be without it. Or, for another example, just recently I bought Armada Astroscope again, because I had the Requiem Blaster as a kid and Astroscope was my favorite, but I lost him.  I’m sure everyone who took the time to read this article has some kind of story like that. 

Another reason I personally find Transformers interesting is their historical significance. I think Classics Astrotrain is really cool in its own right, but I also just love that he’s one of only 2 deluxe class triple changers. I think it’s really interesting that Generations Brainstorm kind of serves as a proof of concept of the entire TR line, and that versions of Punch/Counterpunch are basically the only backwards triple changers, with two robot modes. G1 Soundwave probably hugely influenced the development of Minicons in Armada, and smaller toy interaction in every subsequent line. I think it’s really neat to have a part of that history in my collection. 

Another draw of Transformers, as with any collecting hobby, is finding rare figures. Be it expensive, Japan exclusive boys like Masterforce Browning, Arms Micron Breakdown, Dile and Sauru, the vanishingly rare Lucky Draw figures, members of teams that are tough to find on their own for no reason like RID Rapid Run, exclusives, like Botcon figures or Universal Studios Evac, things that barely saw release like DOTM Deluxe Leadfoot, or even holy grails like the G2 Stunticons, getting a rare figure in your collection is always a treat. I personally don’t go in for that hugely myself, in part because it’s expensive and in part because I don’t super value rarity for its own sake. But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little cool to own my Chevy Aveo Swerve because it’s rare, even though I bought it because I think it has a super unique artstyle. 

On that theme, an individual TF can also be valuable because it fills a specific hole in your collection. An example of this could be getting TR Blitzwing because you have TR Astrotrain and TR Octone, and he rounds out the trio. Or perhaps you’re only missing a single figure from the entire run of Armada, or you need one last Thundercracker to complete your collection of literally all of them. For me, this tends to be a bit more historically driven, because, I am, if you can’t tell, a nerd. I have my eyes on Transmetal 2 Iguanus, because I don’t own a Beast Wars figure from that year. I’ve thought about buying BW2 Moon, just to have one of the very few new mold BW2 toys. 

The final point of aesthetic merit I want to discuss is kind of a restatement of the first.  Every transformer has specific things about it you like that are unique to that toy, and don’t make sense to discuss on other figures. For example, Energon Sharkticon has soulful eyes, and I love how his dumb physique makes him look like an old style superhero. I love that he looks like he’s wearing a helmet, and that the little guns on his boat mode actually move around. None of that is universalizable, but it doesn’t make me value the toy any less. 

This is, of course, by no means an exhaustive examination of everything that makes a toy aesthetically valuable. As I said earlier, I mean this to be a celebration of some things I find personally meaningful, and to give you some insight into how I evaluate toys. I hope this has gotten you thinking about what you yourself value in a transformer. They really are fun, and even though we can lose sight of that sometimes, it’s always there to welcome us when we come back to it. 

[braindamageforbeginners]

Just Eat Your Stupid Vegetables

Day 59

I’d like to begin today’s festivities with a recounting of recent events in my on-going attempt to get more Temodar. For any new readers, this is the chemo drug that all GBM patients are required to take for a year (possibly more)(as I’ve mentioned, the only thing worse than hearing, “We’re extending your treatment” is, “We’re discontinuing your treatment because it’s not working”), and I have been working feverishly to get more of it (and been thwarted by various forms, claims, claims-adjusters, and, most importantly, CVS)(new rule; just as I go out of my way to protect the anonymity of any of my care providers who do me a good turn, I’ll point out the folks who are likely to kill you if you have a serious illness)(and, based on current events, it seems likely that if you wandered into a CVS with an open, dripping wound, they’d call their supervisor and request the proper form before offering you a band-aid). After the most-recent mishap, in which CVS claimed that there was an insurance issue; I found the proper insurance form, forwarded it to the Warlocks’ administrative team, and heard back from one of the nurses that they’d filled it out and sent it on. I got a call the other day from a creepy, automated voice saying that my insurance company had just approved the release of my drugs. There are small children on Christmas who are less joyous than I was at the thought of putting more toxic substances - in higher doses - in my body. In my enthusiasm, I called CVS to see about delivery. You can imagine my confusion when they told me that the hang-up was because there were two prescriptions (Temodar only comes in a few different dosages, so doctors will prescribe you one or two dosages, and give you instructions on how to mix-n-match them to get your exact dosage)(again, you can’t cut these things in half, because they’re basically gel capsules containing mustard gas)(that’s a slight exaggeration, but not by much). After much tearing of hair and rending of teeth, CVS advised me to get in touch with my insurance company about the hold-up. So I called the insurance folks, whilst thinking of being on a beach in the Caribbean. The insurance folks were helpful, and figured out that the obscure authorization form that the Warlocks filled out could be applied to one Temodar prescription (again, I need two); and, after a call to the in-house insurance pharmacist, okayed the second prescription. No screaming or cajoling required. I gave myself an hour off (I had more coffee, when, in retrospect, I should’ve had a martini or two), then called CVS. They eventually agreed to ship me the drugs, after a $130 payment was made. It’s depressing to think that we could put a dollar value on a human life. It’s suicidally-depressing to realize that, apparently, that value at the moment is $130 and 16-ish hours of paperwork and phone calls (we won’t discuss my insurance premiums, which are astronomical). And it’s Bambi’s-mom-died sad to think how many cancer patients with far better prognoses than mine died for far less money. Anyway, I did finally convince CVS to take my filthy, peasant money in exchange for their goods (one feels that Adam Smith might rethink his thesis if he saw the 21st century), and made a mental note to throw a brick through the front window of the next CVS I see (I’m getting a chunk of those 15 hours and $130 back one way or another - CVS can either have my time or my money, but it seems greedy to claim so much of both)(especially when, as Research Coordinator pointed out, Temodar is such a common chemotherapy drug nowadays that it’s quite common for large pharmacies to have a bag or two stashed away). And the chemo drugs arrived this morning, so that’s a form of victory. But that’s not what I want to talk about at the moment.

I would like to share with all of you an interesting revelation I had whilst on vacation from the abyss (I know my father would probably hate that metaphor; sorry, Dad, but it’s a good one, and I’m sticking to it)(I’m about to heap some well-earned praise on him, so I figure it’ll even out). You surface dwellers are aware that there are food sources that you don’t have club to death or process, right? That’s not just a giant squid thing that’s unique to me, is it?

I have ask that because I only this morning starting putting some of the pieces of the puzzle together. Now, the biggest complaint about Temodar is that it causes motility issues (that’s the polite and scientifically-preferred term, I believe), and I suspect that’s been a complaint about the Captain America serum, because the Warlocks recently asked a few times about that issue, or, more specifically, that I didn’t ever seem to have that issue (not in any obvious or nagging way, just a part of me noted, “It seems odd that they’re double-checking that particular question.”). And I only put that together because I recently had to put in a special request to Mother Dearest for various ready-to-eat plant-based items. And only then did it start to occur to me that I’ve been on an ultra-high fiber, ultra-high protein diet.

Although I might jab my father occasionally, it should be noted that he has done a lot in the day-to-day business of keeping me alive. And, when you’re back at home after life knocks you on your ass, you eat what’s in the fridge at home. And my father is almost-obsessive about fruits, vegetables, and fiber. He even eats that horrible bran cereal that is almost-indistinguishable from those food pellets you feed to pet rodents (I really, really hope that’s not the cure for cancer, because I might choose death before that).

I bring this up because it contrasts a bit from me, in the initial part of my treatment. I’d been a pescovegetarian for eleven years - count ‘em, folks - prior to the diagnosis. Heart disease runs in the family, and I thought I might avoid that disease (once you start to think about all the weird, crazy paradoxes and hypocrisies in your life, you go a little mad). After I was told I had a terrible disease, one of my initial thoughts was, “Clearly, vegetarianism is bullshit.” 

Reader, you may be familiar with the word “relapse” as it pertains to addiction. Well, for those first few weeks, that was pretty much me; the crazed, blood-soaked carnivore who refused to eat anything unless it did move. Dad did point out that it wouldn’t do to survive brain cancer to die of heart disease or malnutrition; and that I wasn’t going to win the “Most Eligible Bachelor” award if I continued eating live chickens where the general public could see me. My memory of this conversation suggests that I responded in a less-than-graceful manner (a note to the family and friends of cancer patients; even the nicest, kindest person on the world won’t be very nice or kind for the first month or two after the diagnosis). Instead of smothering me in my sleep (again, that could make him a candidate for canonization), Dad just kind of kept chipping away and, either due to me seeing light, or the exhaustion wearing down my stubbornness, I eventually started eating more plant-based matter (and, eventually, that turned into a lot of plant-based matter, once I learned that vegetables and fruits are actually pretty tasty)(of course, this was all going on while I was chugging Gatorade, and, stacked up next to that, cough syrup doesn’t taste too bad). And, because I’m into weight training and I’ve been told by my neurofeedback guy that protein is good for neurological injury, I increased my protein intake (mostly from those awful protein shakes, which are only slightly better than Gatorade). And I went to the gym, every day (well, at least 5 days out of the week - that Captain America serum is tough on the body). The point is, I have been living - completely accidentally, as it turns out - an extremely healthy lifestyle, as of late. The fact that this was occurring to me as I was literally being torn apart on a molecular level, poisoned, and used as a guinea pig in a mad science experiment (this is a dramatically reductive but not-inaccurate description of cancer treatment) is one of those little ironies that drives me as a writer.

To get to the larger point, at every stage in the process, everyone - from the radiation techs to the Warlocks - has commented on how exceptionally well I’ve tolerated the treatment. I usually shot them a dirty look, because I felt like hell - and, now that I’ve recovered a little, I now realize that I was utterly physically miserable the whole time (it’s just like when I started taking melatonin and sleeping through the night that I realized how many years I must have spent half-asleep and utterly exhausted). Still, in all fairness, the Warlocks and everyone were, in retrospect, right - I was miserable, but I was never completely bed-ridden, apart from two or three mornings here and there. Which makes me wonder, if a large part of that wasn’t due to lifestyle choices on my part; which I’ve been able to contrast with life outside of the abyss. And you people seem almost fearful of anything that isn’t carved from an animal and deep-fried (to be fair, I love bacon-wrapped, beer-battered veal as much as the next guy - probably moreso, since I’m still making up for lost time).

Now, this is not to say that fruits, vegetables, and stair-steppers (or bench-presses, in my case) are going to cure me. If I survive this thing - and that’s still a big “if” (I realize that seems pessimistic, but I’ve realized that, just as positive outlook is important, it does not do to ignore the dark probabilities of life), it’ll be because my surgeon went orienteering in my skull; Radiation Oncologist nuked me; and the Warlocks dosed me with massive quantities of strange and dangerous substances, and then I begged all of them to do it again and again. But, at the same time, maybe there’s something to be said for healthy lifestyle as a complementary treatment to being scalped, microwaved, and poisoned.

Again, this is absolutely not an endorsement of “alternative” medicine (my go-to quote on that matter is from Tim Minchin, who wrote, “Do you know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proven to work? Medicine.”). There is no secret cure “they” don’t want you to know (I love the medical industry, but it simply isn’t competent enough to suppress that type of immediately-profitable information), and if there is, “they” don’t want you to know about it because it’s unsafe or unreliable (or, in my case, being tested for safety)(Mother Dearest once summarized it best when she said, “They could cure cancer, HIV, and Ebola tomorrow if they didn’t have to worry about the patient surviving.”). But, at the same time, there might be a lot to be said for complementary medicine, which, apparently, includes spending time in the gym and large quantities of tasteless fiber. And even then, it’s not like it’s some major constriction on your day-to-day existence (I’m sure Laura, Dan, and Julie are out there reading this and saying, “He wasn’t on any sort of diet I noticed” - and I wasn’t, either, until I got out, and realized Dad had quietly been slipping more plant life into my diet than I was comfortable with). Again, I wouldn’t even have noticed it all until I remembered the Warlocks’ specific questioning about my lack of GI chemo side-effects, and then realizing that I’d been eating far more than the average amount of veggies (if you’re downing gallons of hateful Gatorade and taking dreaded Temodar on a nightly basis, as well as being microwaved every day, extra helpings of brussel sprouts and an extra half-hour in the gym on a daily basis tend to go unnoticed). So, maybe, perhaps, if you plan on being seriously ill, a healthy lifestyle change at the same time might help you out. Maybe,. Possibly. Again, I’m just one person, statistically, I can’t prove or disprove anything.

[wellmeaningshutin]

Short Story #55: Swindle.

Written: 3/2/2017

“Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere? Are you famous or somethin’?” I hear that all the time, and its hard for me to go outside without people asking me similar questions, or staring me down, quietly trying to figure out where they know me from. Maybe its my face or something, I don’t know. I’m not famous at all, and I really haven’t done anything very notable, aside from several run in’s with the law when I decided to get my income by grifting people. Sure, I may have conned a couple of people, but it was never anything big, or morally bankrupt, just small time stuff, believe me. I don’t do nothing to anybody that doesn’t deserve it.

Then again, if anyone falls for my tricks, then you know that they deserve it.

One of the best things about the way I work is that everyone always tends to think that I’m somebody else, I have one of those faces that resembles every face. “Hey, didn’t we go to high school together?” Why yes we did, and I can see you’re doing very well for yourself, but I’m in a bit of a deep end. I was doing great until my wife died from ovarian cancer, and now the governments taken all of our money in death taxes, which leaves me unable to pay for the funeral. “Hey, aren’t you on that television show about the female detective?” Why yes, yes I am, and I will give you an autograph for twenty bucks. Okay, I never said I was good at my job, I’m very small time, believe me. The only time I can make money off of people is when they approach me, thinking that I’m somebody I’m not, and everything I try to do just doesn’t work out too well.

I think the worst part is that I’ve never even failed in a spectacular manner, and my highs are pretty similar to my lows. Either I get around $20, or somebody refuses to pay me and just walks away, nothing of interest, nothing to really even talk about. I guess I should be pleased about how entirely forgettable I am, since it does wonders in my line of work, but sometimes I wonder if I really even should call myself a con man, a swindler, grifter, pretender, smooth talker, hustler, swindler, charmer, fake, louse, whatever you want to call me, I’m probably not. I’m no more than a mere opportunist, and everyone worth their salt creates their own luck, instead of waiting for it to happen to them. Woe be to me, the world’s lousiest conman! I am of such low repute, and my story is of so little of interest that you’ll forget about it after hearing of it! A couple minutes later the tale will completely leave your mind, and you will move on with your life, forgetting a forgettable man such as myself, vaguely familiar due to his lack of defining features.

Now, all of this misery led me to fall into a deep depression, which I eventually tried to keep at bay by exercising. Every day I lifted weights until I was too sore to even worry about how little I was worth worrying about, and all I had to do to get inside of the gym was to use a membership card that I found outside, on the ground. I looked vaguely like the man on the card, and they let me in without any questions. It may have been the biggest con of my life, worth hundreds of dollars with the year’s membership it carried. The second biggest con was when I lied to myself, saying that working out made me a happier person. The year spent doing this was completely forgettable, just like myself, and is not worth mentioning.

Well, there was one bit in the year that I guess could be considered something of importance, or interest, and it was when I met the steroid salesman who lurked around in the locker room, and he had mistaken me for one of his clients, and handed me a large shipment of his that had already been prepaid for. All I had to do was walk up to him and say, “Hey, did my package finally arrive?” and he assumed that I was one of his customers. A pathetic grift for a pathetic man such as myself, having to swindle drugs. You can’t call it very important, because no matter the monetary price of what I had swindled out of the possession of that vulgar man, I instead paid the price through addiction, anger, and a large amount of broken possessions. I can not tell you how many mirrors I had punched during that year, but I can say there were a lot. It must have given me such terrible luck, a lifetimes worth, because of how poorly my life had become when my training had ceased.

All bulked up like an action figure, I was finally ready to begin the scam that I had been planning throughout that year. I mean, well, its not like I was planning it too much, and it really wasn’t my idea in the first place, because I’m really not very good at these sorts of things. What happened was a man, that’s right, a tall, charming fellow with a voice perfect for radio, and a face for movies, he came up to me when I was at a restaurant, and he asked me if I knew him from somewhere. Yes, this is what happened. And I tried to get him to at least pay for my meal, claiming that I was a war hero, or some other sort of pathetic lie, and he saw right through me, but he knew that I looked perfect for a con that he had planned for quite some time. It was just another instance of me being an opportunist, a kite in the wind, a jellyfish in a sea of swindlers, only able to bob up and down and having to travel wherever the currents take me. It was just another random occurrence in life, and I had no choice but to go along with it, and I was sure that something so intelligent, genius, extravagant, something that a real master of manipulation would only be able to come up with, well, it was certainly art, yes, so why didn’t I go with it? You would have chosen to do the same thing, because its not every day that we get to work alongside the intellectual elite.

So, I start working with this dashing stranger to do the job that he had presented to me, and that I had in no way come up with myself. I’m too pathetic to think of something so grand. He told me about how wrestling had been making a huge come back, and with my age, appearance, and size, well, I could certainly pass myself off as some old wrestler coming back to earn his former glory. It wasn’t unheard of, and the people who were mainly into wrestling now had little knowledge of the very old stars from back in the day, so all I-we had to do was simple.

First, he hired some other big lug, and we dressed him and I up in some old style wrestling get ups, and we did a couple fights. Sometimes we had the other man change outfits so that we could pretend that these were all footage from different fights, and we even rented out this older boxing ring, then used trick photography to imply there was a crowd out there, when it was mainly bleachers full of cardboard cut outs and mannequins. The man who came up with this must have been really smart, dedicated, and impressive in the field if he was not only able to put all of that together, but also make it so that people actually believed-when they were placed around the internet-that the faked matches had been genuine. I must say that even I would have been fooled by the whole display, and I guess that shows that I am no more of a conman than a victim myself. The most impressive part was the camera and film that he used, which made it really seem old school, and gave it that found footage effect.

We also made a couple videos of myself, or my wrestling persona-Wild Card-yelling at a camera about made up beefs with other wrestlers. The names I would yell out were a mix of real ones and fake ones, so it would show that there were some credible names for these younger people, but would also display to them that there were other forgotten and obscure figures out there, lost to time since they were big in a world where the internet never existed, and obscurity was a bottomless pit. This was probably the best part of the whole act, even if I did have to memorize the man’s scripts, since I am terrible at improvising duologue, but it doesn’t matter who wrote it, its still fun to yell things such as:

“Mad Gator, you slept with my girlfriend and her mother, so now I’m going to get you in the ring or outside, its your choice. I’ll skin you and turn your shoes into a nice pair of shoes, that I will use to walk around carelessly in a yard full of dog shit.”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, I’M SO FUCKING ANGRY AND YOU CANNOT STOP ME FROM TEARING YOUR HEAD OFF IN THE RING!”

“Hogan, you tan son of a bitch, I’m going to pay you back for giving my daughter that abortion. I kidnapped your father and have hidden away his heart medication, so even if you free him from my thugs, you wont be able to save his life unless you meet me in the ring!”

On top of all of that, we also paid fake news sites to start posting articles about Wild Card’s downward spiral, due to his son dying in the war, which only reminded the wrestler of all of the young men that he saw die in Vietnam, and which led him to step out of the ring for good. It was a very sad story, even if it was a little pandering to veteran crowd, but I still am very proud of the work, that the guy who brought me in on the con did, and I can only wish that I would be able to write so well. I swear, if that man wasn’t spending all of his time tricking poor saps into giving him their hard earned money, then he would probably be able to do so much other amazing things with his life. It makes you think that the man has to love what he does, because he could easily become a millionaire just by playing it straight.

Anyways, there’s also some rumors that were placed around, talking about Wild Card’s interest in returning to wrestling. There’s some stuff about how he saw the light of the lord, and now he’s almost ready to face his inner demons in the ring, using the power of Christ to absolve himself, and blah blah blah. I would judge the guy for pandering this hard, but nowadays its really the easiest way to do things. Hell, it hasn’t been this easy to manipulate people since 9/11, but then again what do I know? The only thing I can pander to is somebody who mistakes me for somebody else. Pandering is the art of creating a situation, opportunity, a cause, while I am a slave to opportunity, and can only find it when it falls into my lap. After the story was put out there, we started getting all sorts of fan mail, saying how they wanted Wild Card to get back in the ring, saying how inspired they were by him. One man even wrote about how the character used to be his childhood idol, but I suspect his mind hadn’t been too solid, but money is money.

Then, while we have all of this momentum behind us, we did the next logical step, which was setting up on one of those crowd-funding sites, to get enough money to rent out a large arena where Wild Card could have his big come back match, as a way of his return to wrestling. The price we needed was much more than it actually cost to rent out the place that the man had in mind, so when we reached our goal there was already some extra cash in our pockets, plus when we went over it we were basically rolling in dough. I was shocked, because that’s the most money I had ever tricked out of anyone in my entire life, and I don’t think I could be able to get anywhere near that amount again. Although, there were a couple snags when some people tried to call the match out on what it was-a scam-but somehow this only made our fans even more devoted to the match, and they started claiming that everyone who called it a scam were actually scammers, and somehow threw politics into there for good measure.

“You think being a veteran was a scam? Go out and die for the country, and then try to say how much of a scam this all is!”

“Why do people keep trying to call this fake? What are they trying to cover up?”

Or my personal favorite: “This man lost his son. HIS SON. If he was lying to all of us (just like the lieberal media) then why did he drop out of wrestling all of those years ago? Why would he have to trick people out of money if he could’ve easily been bigger than Hogan? You know what’s a scam? Sending donations to the Democratic party, now that’s a scam. You guys think anything outside of your echochanmber is made up, when rational people know to call it what it is: THE REAL WORLD.” I don’t even know what that person was even talking about, but they donated $126, so God bless them. ———————————————————————————————————

Now, when it came to the day of the match, my plan had been really simple: take all of the money from the tickets that were sold, no refunds, and then board a flight out of the country. Everything else had been going as I had planned it, so why would this go any different?

Nothing but cheering could be heard from inside the arena, the place was packed not only with people, but with noise, with hope, and I was hearing that there weren’t even enough seats to hold everyone, so people were sitting in the aisles, stairs, everywhere they could be fit. The mastermind behind it, that suave bastard, told me that he bribed the staff to ignore the fire code, and anyways he said that if the place burned down then it would all be even better. If people died in the fire, then there would be less people to call it out as one big hustle, and then we could stage a second match in honor of all of the fans who died. This was when things started to look bad for me, and I was realizing how hard it was going to be for me to go through with the guy’s plan, I didn’t want to disappoint all of those kind people out there, but he was better than me, he was a real con artist, and he convinced me to go through with it.

Sure, there have been stories in the media that are claiming that police were investigating the match, suspecting that it was all a ploy to take the money and run, so that’s why I ended up going through with the match, and ended up in my current condition, but that’s not true at all. They even claim that I was the one behind all of it, but as you have seen, I am in no way capable of being able to pull off any of this. In order to clear my name, and prove that I am a victim of circumstance, I will tell you why I ended up fighting in the ring, and why I am where I currently am.

Now, the guy I was supposed to wrestle against was one huge mother fucker. He was like a mountain on steroids. His teeth were completely made of metal, and he had earned the name “The Compacter”, because he had reportedly crushed another wrestler, with his bare hands, and the guy not only had to go to the hospital, but due to spinal damage he was also six inches shorter than he was before that dreaded match. If there was ever a villain in wrestling, then this guy was the man who the villain was afraid of. You get the point, and you can also probably tell why the ringleader had chosen him for Wild Card’s come back, even though I had to have it explained to me three times before I was able to piece it all together. I’m surprised the guy was so patient with me, it really took me a long time to understand the scheme since I’m really just not cut out for that line of work.

So, the both of us have our bags, are dressed up to not gain any attention, and we’re all ready to skip town with all of the money from the big match. Problem is, I’m already guilty about the magnificent scam that we were about to pull off, and on top of that I see the Compacter getting ready for the match, and he’s talking to his kid. First its a sweet moment, and I sort of feel bad for how great of a father he is, but there’s no reason to risk death with a man just because he’s good to his kid. He was already paid anyways. What I saw afterwards really led me to stay, because I saw him flat out clock his own child in the face, and the poor thing is sprawled out on the floor, blood gushing from his nose, she’s-that’s right, it was his daughter-crying quietly, probably because she didn’t want to anger the beast any further. As this awful, horrible, gut-wrenchingly tragic scene plays out, guess what the monster is doing? He’s laughing his head off, that’s what.

In order to stand up to this cruel man, this bully-not because I would’ve been arrested if I tried to flee-I had to face him in the ring, to hopefully show him that he can’t treat children like that. Somebody had to stand up for the ones who can’t protect themselves, and I knew I had to be that person. Don’t call me a hero. What I did is what anyone, any Christian, should have done, and I’m glad that I did my part, even if I paid dearly for it. Sure, I might have been hospitalized for quite some time, and I’ll never be able to walk right again, but in my heart I know that I had done the right thing, because I was able to cast away my life of sin, and was able to stand up for everything that was good and righteous. If we allow evil to spread around the world, unpunished, then doesn’t that make us evil? Who are we to judge horrible deeds if we do not risk everything to seek justice?

Now, you might be wondering why there were no reports of the mastermind that I have talked about, but that’s because he is also a master of disguise, and was able to slip past the police with no problem. I heard rumors of him being able to forge passports, and he is most likely living in some foreign country under some fake name. You can tell that he is a very dangerous man, because he was able to pin many of his other schemes onto me, but like I have demonstrated, I am just a victim of chance. The only reason that they claim I have swindled all of those people, were involved in all of those multi-million cons, was because they never had pictures of the real expert, the man who got me wrapped up in this awful business, and I was the only one who was left behind.

Is this the price I should have to pay for doing the right thing, the just thing? Should I have to spend my time disabled, risking time in prison for crimes that I did not commit, all because I was a victim of a con myself? No, that cannot be right, and that’s why I must implore you to donate, because if I cannot build the funds for an appropriate defense, for private detectives to track down the real swindler, then he will only continue to trick the unsuspecting out of all of their hard earned money, and I will rot in jail in his place. Does that sound like justice to you?

[tumblunni]

im seriously so impressed with your leech knowledge!! would you care to share a bit more on some cool annelids you know of? o: !!

I actually don’t know super much about leeches, its mostly stuff I picked up from the internet too. I kinda used up all my Cool Facts in that one post, lol!

Umm... random other leech facts...* They have a sucker on both their mouth and their butt, allowing them to get around by sticking to surfaces and then somersaulting around to catch the next thing with their other sucker. They’re really funny to watch! Like living slinkys!* Also they have quite adorable mannerisms while doing this. They seem to be rather skittish, they always check left and right before making any movement. Which looks hilarious cos they stretch out to their fullest extent and wiggle around in the air like one of those gas station inflatable mascots! XD

* Oh, and leeches do actually have eyes! Its just hard to see them cos most of the native leeches to europe and america are black or dark green in colour. Interestingly there’s no universal number of eyes! Many breeds have entirely distinct numbers and arrangement of eyes, ranging from nine to just two. And cos they’re just lil dot eyes, those ones look very much like emoticon faces. Daww!

* Not all leeches drink blood, in fact the sanguineverous ones arent even a majority amoung the species. Again, its just that most of the ones that’re easy to find in englishspeaking countries happen to be that kind. And, well, humans don’t even take much notice of the ones that don’t affect them personally. Leeches that don’t drink blood are pretty similar to regular earthworms in their feeding habits. Or there are ones with a probuscis similar to a butterfly. And there are ones that vaccuum up tiny insects into their toothless mouth like a whale eating plankton, and ones that have completely ordinary predatory habits like any mammal. VARIETY LEECH PACKThere’s even ones that specifically only eat larger invertibrates, the badass viking warriors of the annelid world! I’m not scared of blood-drinking leeches, but honestly even I can’t stomach watching videos of those ones feeding. They take down large snails by stabbing their face into them like a knife, and its just hella metal and hella sad. Whichever one wins, its a really bloody horrible end for the loser...

* Tropical leeches have some very pretty colours!

(Also a nice pic of them doing their silly scouting wiggle before they make a jump! just imagine that but doing the kermit ‘yay’ dance)

* Oh and also there are rare blue earthworms!

* Leech bites are the most harmless of any animal ever in the universe. This is not just hyperbole! they actually secrete a special chemical in their saliva called hirudin that acts as a natural anesthetic and disinfectant. It benefits them to not have their victim feel the bite, that way they don’t get squashed.So basically, if you’re bit by a leech, the best strategy is just to leave it to finish feeding and drop off. The only real problem with a leech bite is that the numbing saliva will make the wound continue bleeding for longer than usual, but its such a tiny bite that its not gonna be any problem. Leech bites have a SUPERNATURALLY low chance of ever getting infected, unless you like.. get swamp water in the open wound or something. And it’d take being covered in leeches head to toe to feel any sort of negative effect from loss of blood, they’re tiny critters that eat so little, after all. In actual fact, the most dangerous thing is to freak out and pull it off! The leech struggling to cling on will cause your wound to be widened, and if you kill it then you can risk it vomiting its insides into that wound. And that WILL give you an infection! You dont wanna get a stomach full of someone else’s blood poured into your open veins! ESPECIALLY if you follow the folk wisdom of pouring salt on them, that way you’re getting melted dead leech flesh AND SALT in your goddamn wound! So yeah, until we figure out a reliable method to scare leeches off without them puking in the process, its just best to wait til the lil bugger drops off of its own accord.Plz b kind 2 leech. It benefits you too!

* Oh, and this is why medicinal leeches are used! And yes, they actually are still used nowadays!Its a shame that leech treatment has been written off as medieval pseudoscience, because they’re still very useful and relevant in modern medicine. They’re a very effective method of removing necrotizing tissue from open wounds, and to ease swelling by sucking blood, AND to numb the pain AND to disinfect the wound safely! Its not exactly a commonly accepted practise, but there are scientists that still study their use in hospitals, and even people trying to invent a ‘robot leech’ that would fullfill the same purpose, but at the moment the real thing is still way more effective. (lol its a weird name but its actually just a suction cup jar sort of apparatus)

* Oh, and I found the article about the one leech subspecies that experiences ‘pregnancy’! The pic might be a little gross to people who are scared of leeches though, it shows the leech curled around its eggs. They carry the eggs constantly until they hatch, and then teach them how to feed and display general affectionate behaviours like a mom. (Though leeches are actually all genderless hermaphrodites, lol)

Ok lol I think that’s all the interesting leech facts I’ve got! I might not have explained them super well though. And this is just stuff I learned from reading various biology blogs over the years. It sucks I could only track down the source for one of the facts...But I just hope this was enough to get people interested in learning more about small worm thingies that seem boring at the first glance!Oh, but be careful looking for more info, its annoying but the vast majority of google images for searching for leeches is just really gory pictures of people with leech-related injuries or whatever. Its one of those species where they get so little love even from scientists, that just the first 30 pages of search results are nothing but ‘omg once a guy got a leech in his EYE- strange news weekly. com’ :P

I’d reccommend reading @bogleech‘s blog, and looking through at the articles on his personal site which is linked in the about page. He only has a couple of articles about leeches in particular, but he gives a lot of education on loads of other rare and underappreciated ‘scary’ animals too! And his blogging style is really great, he has a lot of love for all of nature and refuses to be held down by stereotypes. He also has articles on stuff like top 10 monster designs in various videogames, and showing off rare collectables for obscure tv shows. And he even reviewed every single pokemon! And he runs his own webcomic!So yeah, if you want a smart person talking about leeches, plz go to this guy who is way more qualified to talk about the subject.