Footnote: This Is My New Blog! Due To Some Technical Issues With The Old One, I Will Be Rblging The Original

Footnote: This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both lil series!

Creacher Feature Friday 2: Ode to the Opossum

Oh, you marvelous, misaligned, misunderstood marsupial, how I salute you~

Introducing a classic North American underdog and everyone’s favorite garbage gobbler, the Virginia Opossum! Not, of course, to be confused with the Australian common possum.

Ngl, the more I’ve come to learn about these funky lil fellas throughout my years, the more they solidify their spot as my favorite animal, but also the more their bad rep absolutely befuddles me.

Going by the pop culture representation of the poor things you would think they were just rat-tailed raccoons. But they’re so flipping unique and underrated.

Getting the obvious out of the way, not ratty at all! Not even remotely rodent. That’s all pouch-baring marsupial, baby, like kangaroos and bandicoots and mongooses. They’re also the ONLY marsupial native to the United States. And just like the cobra-eating mongoose, they also happen to share a high resistance to snake venom! We love them down in the south where they’re a fearless and very successful predator of copperheads, water moccasins, and rattlesnakes. They also help keep Lyme disease in check each year. They rarely catch it and/because they eat most ticks that latch onto them, making them not a key reservoir species for the pathogen.

You know what else they love eating? Slugs and snails the sorts that otherwise wreck gardens left unchecked. They call them rabid pests? Why, opossums are straight up free pest control! And the “rabid” thing is the most ridiculous part.

Like, can someone seriously, please tell me how on earth THIS little guy becoming the poster boy for rabies jokes makes any ounce of sense? I mean, other than for the hilarious irony when you realize a little known fact:

Virginia opossums have a natural resistance to contracting the rabies virus, too. No joke. They’re probably near the very bottom of the list of animals you’d have to fear the disease from. While any mammal certainly can become rabid, it’s phenomenally rare for opossums be reported as active carriers of rabies, and this comes down to the simple trait that is their curiously low body temperature.

Most mammals like to keep their innards in a cozy range of about 97°F to 104°F (~36 °C to 40°C), the Virginia Opossum enjoys a comfortable homeostasis all the way down to about 94°F (~ 34 °C). As luck would have it for them, rabies has a hard time being able to incubate at such a low temperature under normal circumstances.

Got a hunch, but maybe the “vicious/rabid” stereotype comes from the way they act when humans do happen to encounter them up close. They’re horribly near-sighted, slow moving little wanderers (big reason they get roadkilled so often), so they don’t really have fleeing in their set of options when facing down a threat. When an opossum gets frightened, the first thing they know to do is…. Bluff. Open up their mouths real wide and hiss and growl as convincingly scary as they can manage. I think it looks really goofy tbh, like

“:V”

The thing being, while this is pretty a intimidating act, it’s not much anything more than that. I’ve never actually learned about a wild mammal LESS willing to commit to defending itself. They’re complete cowards that seldom ever attack or bite people. There’s videos out there of professionals being able to handle wild females WITH babies on board and the things never actually go for a bite.

And this is mostly because their plan B after the bluff isn’t working out is, well… you know, playing possum. It’s not even something they choose to do. It’s actually an involuntary reflex due to shock. They curl up, keep that mouth wide open, and basically pass out on the spot. To make the corpse audition even more “convincing” they additionally secret a foul odor from their anal glands, so they can smell as dead as they look. The hope is that whatever was spooking them so badly just looses its appetite and moves on, leaving the opossum unscathed.

⚠️Important note that this is of course NOT an endorsement to try your luck for yourself by picking up or petting the first one you see. No wild animals are 100% predictable, especially when cornered, and even if these are relatively docile, dealing with them should be left to the licensed professionals (who do still wear gloves when they do, just in case) and any kind of unnecessary contact is going to be extremely stressful to them. We understood? Ok 👍🏻

Really, unless you’re a chicken farmer there’s really no reason to be so darn afraid of them. All they mostly do is just bumble along trying to mind their own business. Look at these super moms, mad respect.

This is seriously what they do for a while after the babies are too big to chill in here pouch, and it makes me smile very widely.

Not to mention the babies themselves are drop-dead adorable. Check out this lil punk and his fingerless gloves! This teeny silly billy and his prehensile tail?

Stupendous and gorgeous. Hats off to the common opossum, please keep being yourselves. We know you’re trying your best.

And that will be all until next Friday. I promise, pinky out and everything, I will definitely fill you in by then on the whole “mind-control fungus that turns cicadas into bisexual zombies” thing I mentioned last time. Just sit tight.

Footnote: Psst, This is my new blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I am rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing the future rambles under this handle from now on!

Media Marvel Monday, #6:

It Feels Good to Be Bad, and Why The Overlord is The Perfect Playable Villain

Anime fans, I absolutely love you, but sit down, this is about a video game series from the late 2000s. One I really don’t remember how I got into exactly… I sort of think I rented Overlord 2 once upon a time on a whim.. Know I never saw any ads for it though, and barely anyone talks about it much these days. So, gotta do what I gotta do! Trust me though I actually think we have some common ground here you might be interested in.

And you others out there, I see you, disney fans exclusively fixated on the villains of every classic, y’all who main Bowser and King Boo in Mario Kart, everyone one of you eccentrics who can’t stop spilling your heart out for Megamind at any chance you get, who unironically throw it back to hits like “When You’re Evil” and root on that feral madman who wants to watch the (fictional) world burn. You guys are MY kinda people, okay?

And can anyone really blame us for how damn FUN the role of evil can look? By which I mean the outfits, the energy, the vibes, and the simple joy of fucking some shit up and climbing atop the world, perish all who stand in the way. You want me to love your villains, you need to engrave three words about them in my mind: Determination, aesthetic, and Badass. These are not the best villains in writing period, but I personally find them the best suited for the shoes of a non-heroic protagonist. THIS is what you want to sell when you’re pitching “play the monster” as your game premise. This is the first piece of what makes Overlord and its sequel shine true to form.

But on the second note, why do so many of us enjoy this anyway? Minor guess, but this is not actually pulling the wings off of an ant sadism, don’t get it twisted. This is more.. the innocent, childish glee of stomping around a cardboard city and pretending to be godzilla. This is only love of "evil" as performance, just the other side of the same indulgent coin that loves for the power fantasies of Batman and Rambo. Authors who love villians, or at least understand and love the impact a villain can really have on a memorable work, write great villains. So, no need to even consider feeling weird about it, and definitely a reminder: nothing to judge or take wrong. But something else I think this comes from is an oft overlooked angle of humor. That is the other piece right there, my friends- a dark kind of humor that only a bad guy would have any position of self awareness or cynicism to make work. To give easy example, Puss in Boots, so many agree, is a great case lately of seeing a revived flocking back to love for what I’m talking about here. Complex, multidimensional villains are freaking awesome. Villains with humanity and sympathetic glints rock. That’s just good writing when done competently, but it’s something so caught onto these days that we’re at the point where an unapologetic monster is the retro subversion rather than the rule exception anymore. Like you CAN’T tell me Jack Horner was not a hilarious, well-received breath of fresh air.

The Overlord series, in a nutshell, unironically lets you be Jack Horner, and win.

(Note: The following is specifically going to pertain to my personal favorite of the franschise: Overlord II. You’ll have to trust my anecdotal word that the first game is still really good, but not entirely necessary to enjoy its sequel.)

To sum up the meat of the setting, it basically follows your stereotropical fantasy world, with elves and gnomes and all of that fun jazz, but it does so in a "Shrek" sense. It's a whimsical and epic world that is to put it bluntly, unapologetically fucking ugly. Unicorns are bloodthirsty terrors, gnomes are on level with nuissance pests, and elves are portrayed as obnoxious caricatures of tree-hugging hippies. Humans have a powerful civilization going that takes the Roman Empire as its on the nose inspiration, but most people of the world are shown as bigoted, self-interested, and sheeplike. There is maybe one character I can name from Overlord 2 that isn't a POS in some respect.

But you're sure as hell not playing to be that person, lmfao. You play as an unnamed beast of a man referred to as the Fourth Overlord. See, there's somewhat of a cycle to the world that follows the usual script of the fantasy paint by number- the dance between good, and the stubborn evil that keeps somehow rising to power every generation or two because of plot reasons. Your guy, he's the son of the third overlord, dude from the first game, and that fella sure checked off all of the "Sauron-esque dark lord" boxes and then some. Long story short, he had a solid run of world domination, and then met an untimely oopsie one day that left him more or less trapped in Hell. So, role's open, you've been an evil little demon child since basically birth, time to put on your big boy cape and show the world you got what it takes to carry the legacy on.

My, unspeakable monsters do grow up so fast 🥺❤

So, you got your goal in order, but the question is, how does someone take up the mantle of building an empire of darkness? A little help , of course, because what the hell would a true Overlord be without

MINIONS!

Those banana bitches from Despicable Me don't have shit on these hysterical hellspawns. Years before pop culture was saturated with those yellow pill dudes, Overlord had already come up with the exact same concept, but done fucking right. They're rowdy and crude. They're whacky and wild. They are DUMB as rocks, but masochistically loyal to their master. And they are the scrungly lovechild of Gremlins and Pikmin, so obviously, the complete package as far as little funny henchmen go. They come in four different variants with distinct strengths and weaknesses. Most of the gameplay revolves around commanding hordes of these fellas and utilizing a mix of puzzle-strategy thinking and action-rpg antics. What's even better is that your central hub and seat of power rests in a super kickass upside down tower in The Netherworld. The demons got some good real estate tastes.

An interesting way the game lets you decide exactly what sort of evil tyrant you'd like to be is in the implementation of an interesting sort of "morality", or, immorality system. Picture the usual sort of "this route, that route" karma mechanic, but instead of a sliding scale between good and evil, your optional values are domination vs destruction. The gist is on the tin, and if either option is leaned into completely, it does effect the epilogue cutscene. If you prefer to control your unwilling subjects through magical coercion, keep your impulse control in check, and play a more cold and clever Overlord, you'll be running down the domination route. The effect on gameplay this has is that it generally specializes your dark magical skills into minion buffs and being able to turn your weakest enemies into mindless slaves for your side. The destruction route, on the other hand, is for those who want to go full chaotic evil and isn't afraid to get their hands very, very dirty. The spells along the destruction tree are good at exactly what you think they're good at, and if you really want to FC this style for the ending, you may find fights a little easier at the cost of really kneecapping your ability to easily farm certain resources. Quite hard to extort villages after you've burned them all to the ground with no survivors, after all. Despite the absolutely unserious overtones that Overlord 2 treats itself with, there is actually a story to experience (With a fun twist-antagonist to boot), and it was hardly a thoughtless project. The soundtrack is earnestly one of my favorites of playstation titles, and while the worldbuilding is a cynical kind, it's very consistent to itself and actually thought out a lot more of itself than it lets off at the surface level. I can't help but dream of a world where it got enough lasting popularity to make a modern remake possible, because it would have been lovely to see the concept art's vision given a better justice than the limits of the time.

Overlord has always been something of 'the Shrek of old Playstation games' to me. It was tongue-in-cheek subversive while simultaneously celebrating the heart of the genre. I think it could have been well remembered by more if it had gotten better luck back in the day, that is, if you can look past the elements of it that didn't hold up as well as it did twenty years ago. Most I remember being the low hanging fatphobia fruit that the humor style had a bit of a fixation on for a lot of the story, and perhaps the canonical harem situation but... it's practically a moot point in the context to the fact that this is still the same game where it is physically impossible to progress past the tutorial level through any other means besides clubbing a group of baby seals to death. It was T-rated edgy, but it didn't forget that really, it was about silly fun and the "Jack Horner" kind of absurdity of it all at the end of a day.

ITS SO HOT OUTSIDE

Footnote: Feel like seeing more rambles n' stuff? This is my current blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as future write-ups!

Creacher Feature Friday 6: I Found a Tragedy and a Rarity in the Ferns 🪺

~Ah, brood parasitism, one of my favorite forms of symbiosis. Brilliant tactic, evolutionarily speaking. Why invest precious resources and time into raising your own offspring, when you can just entirely hijack the parental instincts of another species? The cuckoo bird is one of the most well known and famous examples of this reproductive strategy, never building their own nests, but happy to drop their eggs into the clutches of other birds to raise as their own.

*(fun fact: this is actually the origin of the slang words “cuckold” and “cuck”, from an old French term for the cuckoo bird.)

Today I would, however, love to talk to talk about the brown-headed cowbird, another parasitic avian species, common to the United States.

The reason why is because I found a lucky, incredible sight while watering my Aunt’s ferns once:

If you don’t immediately get why I was so excited when I realized what this was, this is a photo I took of an inactive house finch nest I had been keeping my eyes on last summer.

For some reason every year, they love to set up nests inside the hanging plants. A cowbird must have also decided it seemed like a lovely spot, and left behind one of its own eggs in the nest. Now I didn’t see the brood up close myself until the family had already moved on, and I snapped this picture when the time came to remove the nest, having no idea it had even been parasitized. And what was left behind is evidence of a little-known phenomenon called

Egg capping!

What makes parasitism like the This destructive to the original nest is that one cowbird hatchling usually dooms its adoptive siblings. They grow much faster than their host species and they immediately outcompete the other fledgelings in the nest due to their size for the host parents’ attention and feeding. I think you can see why they need all they can get. Exhibit A:

Another way they have of reducing competition in the nest, it’s been theorized, is to literally prevent their “clutchmates” from hatching at all- by “capping” one of the original eggs with its own eggshell. This is not something that the hatchling does on purpose, but with a little bit of luck, in the fact that they often hatch and develop faster than the hosts, this can happen by pure chance as the shell gets tossled around with the other eggs. And evidently, this is extremely rare to happen under normal circumstances, what with chicks synchronizing their hatching, the parents usually then removing the shells from the nest.

So, it’s a fortunate evolutionary bonus for these home-wrecker cowbirds that this is another way they manage to gum up the works.

An Extra note: though it is potentially upsetting news that Brown-headed cowbirds are detrimental to their host nests, they are still a native and federally protected species in their home range. It is illegal to remove or tamper with their eggs the same way it is illegal to disturb their hosts’, and upon finding a parasitized nest in your yard, remember that it is best to let nature take its course. Cowbirds are still part of this beautiful ecosystem, even if they are mooching free-loaders :)

But, there is a nasty little twist to the story in my nest photos. The cowbird chick probably didn’t find success either. You see… house finches were actually a really poor choice for the mother cowbird who decided to drop her offspring here.

While the majority of local songbirds here (brown headed cowbirds included) require insects in their diet to develop well and strong, house finches are a special exception- they are almost exclusively herbivores. The cowbird that capped this finch egg probably didn’t fare well under its unsuspecting parents, muscling out its competition in vein. I hope those finches have a better run next year, but I am very thankful I got to see some really neat ecology in action, and right outside the front door!

Footnote: How I 'doin? Feel like seeing more rambles? This is my new blog! Due to pesky technical issues with the old one, both the CFF and the MMM lil write up series have been moved to continue here!

Creacher Feature Friday 9: Cachalots Are Pretty Badass

Okay, I needed something a bit easier to get back into the swing of this stick. Something with a funny name. Something maybe a little relevant to the huge Moby Dick kick I've been getting back on lately. Here's just the thing,

Now I'd hope you already know what the common cachalot of all things was. They're big, they're blocky looking, they dive real deep, and they're also known as sperm whales to most people these days. Be very assured there's a lot more to these marine hulks than meets the eye, and it's pretty hardcore stuff to say the least.

Bet you at least wondered what the colloquial name was all about, to make middle schoolers chuckle at the very mention of such a creature? As much as it does indeed have that effect, it's actually because the animals were long-hunted over the seas precisely for their enormous amounts of sperm…-aceti, that is! Say it again, spermaceti! This was the stuff 17th century dudes were so laser focused on these specific whales over in the first place. I wish I could tell you to get your mind out of the gutter on the word, but spermaceti does basically translate from its latin origins to 'Whale jizz'. No, that's not what it really is, but that's what the first bozos who discovered it thought it seemed like, so you can go and blame them for this. Not sure if i prefer this timeline or the one where we call them "Spunk Whales" instead.

But about this not-jizz itself, inside the living leviathan, it exists as a waxy substance, housed in no more fitting place than the whale's own Spermaceti organ. If you've ever wondered what the inside of those big fat heads of theirs was so stuffed with, well, they're literally big fat heads after all.

So much of a Sperm whale's noggin is dedicated to just these two big sections. The Melon, or simply "junk" (cause whalers tended to regard it as the more useless bits) is a dedicated section of fatty mass that all toothed whales have. The raw spermaceti on the other hand is more of a liquidy grease, and this level of evolutionary commitment to the concentration of it in such a way as above is something special about these fellas. While it does look evidently pretty damn important in some way, experts still debate a little on exactly how it is to the whales. The most likely answer so far is that it plays a role in the creatures' calls and sonar interpretations, sensible with how key to their hunting and communication sound is.  Because of many complicated adaptations to their sonar, their echolocation isn’t just able to sense where their prey is, but also the direction it’s moving toward.

Whalers meanwhile were nuts for the stuff, because after processing, it made for a cornerstone driver of the entire whaling economy age: fueling superior lamps and candles and becoming incorporated into cosmetics, ointments, industrial lubricants, all kinds of uses.

And a bonus whaling fact! Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was actually inspired by real historical events, the white whale itself having been a direct reference to the 100% legit case of “Mocha Dick”, an albino, 70 foot long, and particularly aggressive sperm whale bull that garnered a reputation for his pale hide and propensity to evade/attack several whaling ships.

Even more overtly is how that novel ripped the events of the sinking of the Essex, a 1800s whale ship that straight up sank after a sperm whale, which mind you, the crew were not even actively hunting, rammed their vessel completely unprovoked. This kind of thing was not that unheard of even only a few generations ago. There’s a dozen of things to be said of how much media survived from not even 3 full centuries ago we have to look back on where Sperm whales are not just prized hunts or resources, but feared so greatly by humans that they have been compared to the literal biblical Leviathan. It’s fascinating how we hyped these animals up to mythological, even religious proportion. The average deckhand on a whaling ship, to his perception, was surviving and participating through a real-life Monster Hunter game.  

But,, that’s not quite the feeling around them today, is it?  Noooo, today everyone knows these creatures as some of the gentlest of giants, and I’m not even saying they’re wrong.  Modern cachalots are amazingly docile and chill around humans today, at most usually choosing to just leave the area when boats pull up and they’re not happy.

So, something changed?

Yeah, a lot did, especially the part where we usurped even orca whales as their main natural predator. In a ton of ways, cachalots are virtually the elephants of the sea. They travel in matrilineal herds, their males are called bulls, they're pretty clever cookies, and wouldn't you know it... they sure don't forget easy. They didn't just catch on to what humans were up to when we were harpooning their buddies, but researcher logs dating back from the 19th century recorded that whales were teaching each other how to ram and escape whalers! Not only had the beasties figured out to communicate with their pods and coordinate defensive retaliations against the harpooners, but they even took advantage of the fact that the wooden ships were entirely sail-propelled, so the pods would flee upwind from them!

The ONLY reason that sperm whales are not so aggro'd toward and beefing with humans anymore is purely because they don't feel like they have to anymore. But even if what you're hearing from me is that they're mostly peaceful, that doesn't mean I'm saying they're mostly harmless.

Though mere flesh and bone they may be, cachalots are still near-Lovecraftian levels of powerful alongside a speck of flotsam like you. For one, free-swimming near, especially behind any large enough cetacean is a lot like being a gnat flying around the personal space of a person. You're pretty much at the mercy of whether or not the giant you're following so close to decides it's getting a little annoyed with you. You ever seen how cows can use their tails to swat large flies right out of the air? Except in this case the tail is nearly 20 feet long and powers a 60+ ton mammal like a majestic blimp through the ocean.

Truth be told though that's not even necessary to consider when a grown cachalot could theoretically just shout you to death without a lick of contact. Get me, while under water, these whales are LOUD. Louder than loud, literally the loudest living organism we know of. Remember how I said this species has a ton of unique adaptations devoted to their ability to make noise. A blue whale, the biggest whale, can make "clicks" that register at around  188 decibels of sound. The sperm whale's own can get up to as far as 233 decibels.

*For refence, the human eardrum risks instantly rupturing upon exposure to about 165 db and up. Sounds from 170-200 db can literally just vibrate the utter hell out of your organs, causing potentially life-threatening injuries. Let me reiterate, if you are near a sperm whale, and (unlikely as it may be) that whale decided it wanted to let rip with a full volume click, your own lungs could theoretically just explode and kill you. It could hypothetically be like idling at the receiving end of a sonic cannon.

And You know what else is something everyone knows is badass? Battle scars, and boy oh boy if you would look at the war tapestries these older gents can carry on them.

And there's a lot of stories they can tell. Larger bulls may collect a scratch or two from a scuffle with a rival male, or any adult whale can have an unlucky run in with our fishing gear, but the most notable? Look no further than one of the cachalot's favorite snacks: Enormous, deep sea squids. If you truly are what you eat, than sperm whales are bad. asses. Because for being mostly soft-bodied abyssal spaghetti, large squids put up a hell of a good fight. So, in the process, they often leave a few marks in the whale's skin with their beaks and tentacles in a struggle. "Hol up, they do THAT ^ with their arms? What do they have on those things, teeth? meat hooks???" Yes, in fact.

Giant squid suckers on the left, colossal squid suckers on the right~

And before you get too impressed at what the squids were packing I need to take a second to remind you what kind of tools the spermies are coming at them and their own competition with.

There’s a lot of toothed whales out there in the world, but hats off to these ones, largest of all toothed predators, period. You are survivors, you are majestic wonders, and you. are. badasses.