#there was a centipede in my house earlier it was so big and scary i gagged

[eyedelater]

this is the post i have written while reading pluto by urasawa naoki

what a good recommendation. thank you for sharing.

i am very tickled by the fact that this is a spinoff of astro boy, i'm reading it without ever having consumed ANY astro boy media, AND astro boy himself dies in it (for a time.) every one of these factors is *chef's kiss*. i love the idea that someone will put their whole heart into creating a spinoff like this and not hold back whatsoever.

i will note that everyone having a large nose makes it a little difficult to distinguish characters sometimes. like haas and gesicht. but it's also refreshing to have a manga artist who does not hold back when drawing noses. and i'll admit the noses are powerful.

i'm reading a scanlation by stephen paul and mangascreener and i think they've done a great job (insofar as i can say that without having seen the raws). i mean there's no foolish grammatical errors or anything. well, very few. i have no sense of how long ago this translation occurred. might've been when the manga was coming out.

the themes around AI and emotion and humanity are compelling… i'm just absorbing everything without forming thoughts of my own.

i notice robots are hetero. i'm sure there's nothing stopping them from falling in love in non-hetero ways though. and they can raise human children…? i want to see a family with three robot moms and one human kid. the luckiest kid in the world with her amazing strong three robot moms.

the idea of making strong robot cops and soldiers that look like normal middle-aged white men. and not even really sexy ones. maybe if they were too sexy it would be distracting?

the idea of a world with sentient AI robots who can be easily destroyed and are irreplaceable. the mind itself can't be backed up and stored somewhere? you have to just accept that it can't. [note added after reading the whole thing: they address the idea that a mind can be copied and put into a new robot body and that it then becomes a new being. this must be the school of philosophy the author adheres to with respect to duplication of minds)

when pluto stopped possessing the park guy's body and the other guy was like "now come to your only TRUE body…" and pluto emerged up from something wet. robot bodies are usually the opposite of wet. that's how you make a killer robot extra scary. have its body be wet.

tenma is just gendo ikari with a pompadour… right down to the glasses shape. says his son hates him. wife's dead

of course you will think an AI is a failure if you're creating it to try to replicate a certain person…

all these anti-robot microaggressions oh my god

pluto's true form is revealed with no explanation as to why it had to be wet earlier

it switched to a different scanlation group and the quality immediately went down haha… and some chapters later, this new group translated it as "gejihit" instead of "gesicht." they misunderstood the (ostensible) protagonist's name. the guy whose face is on the cover. they didn't bother to learn that guy's name before taking on the translation project.

i wonder if gesicht was so named not because of the significance of the german word Gesicht (which just means "face") but because of how it sounds transliterated in japanese, as gejihito, where "hito" means "person" and "geji" could mean "command/order" (as in taking commands or orders). also "gejigeji" means "house centipede" (irrelevant)

i guess atom did have to come back to life… since he's astro boy…

been a while since i took any manga screenshots to comment on but i had to for this one: https://gyazo.com/edf86995592bc2a56bfec0f94ad9ddf8 i want a math person to tell me how many words it would take to express that formula verbally. this is a human guy saying a big stupid formula out loud to a robot. if the recipient is a robot, you can give him a microsd card or have him visually scan a piece of paper. formulas like those are hell to say out loud, right? dumbass tenma. this is my unhelpful commentary.

you could hold some of these people's noses in the palm of your hand like a small apple.

lately i've been paying extra attention to how facial expressions in manga portray emotions. the range of facial expressions shown on characters tends to be kind of set within one manga (you rarely see an established mangaka bust out an expression the likes of which you've never seen in their work), but each mangaka has a distinct way to do it. it's their take on the breadth of human emotions. the faces in ranking of kings are very unique and full of heart and also often endearingly clumsy and also sometimes confusing and vague. but they work! the faces in pluto are in a completely different style and also seem to encompass different emotions, but they also work and are clearly full of heart. there is POWER in well-executed facial expressions. it is narrative power and emotional power. it's COMMUNICATION. and one manga where the facial expressions do not communicate well with me is stupid jujutsu kaisen where if someone is in a tense moment they just make a face like 8| and it's like, that face doesn't mean anything. that face isn't showing anything. and that's one reason i have mercilessly declared that jujutsu kaisen is lacking in heart. jujutsu kaisen never made me fuckin cry! (maybe it did. i forget.) it's got nothing but Coolness. you can't build a whole good manga solely on Coolness. it's not a matter of genre or technical artistic skill. this has been the obligatory shitting on jujutsu kaisen of this post.

they really gave pluto a cute design. i'm very satisfied. he's got teeth, and i like that. still no word on why he is or was wet. he opened his mouth and it made saliva strings. machine oil? or still wet?

astro boy gets powered up by the power of hate…

when you don't read manga for a while, you lose track of the approximate scale of how many mangas there are and what proportion of them might be very good. i'm very pleased to find there is a manga this good that i had never heard of. (except maybe once. i do have a vague memory of seeing a tumblr post about naoki urasawa's noses.)

it is very like a president of the united states of ******* to become willingly ensnared in the machinations of an entity that clearly only ever had bad intentions

bora appears and it yells HOGAAAH and BORAAA

i had true doubt as to whether the world would end, right up until the middle of the last chapter. i can appreciate that. i also couldn't have predicted that final panel. but i appreciate that unpredictability too.

i hate the adjective "gritty." maybe because in my mind the connotation is of a "gritty reboot" that takes something good and turns it into something stupid by trying to make it edgy and morally dubious. like… have you read the unreleased early draft movie script for louis sachar's Holes? forced edginess to the point where it's ridiculous and it doesn't Hit. "gritty" is like imagine dragons (diss). i don't want to describe this manga as "gritty" because i don't want to insult this manga. it doesn't have any of the surface-level manufactured darkness of something "gritty." it has proper darkness and proper philosophical and moral quandaries. and it has beauty.

how do i decide which mangas to write posts about as i read vs which to let simmer without putting my thoughts into words? i dunno.

[askthestabbystabbysquad]

Oh i loved that last one~. Oh how about they come in from *ahem* 'working', hear their s/o screaming and run in only to see their s/o standing on the table or counter cause they saw a big fat bug

Michael: He silently entered his s/o’s house. The knife was dripping blood onto his shoe. Last time he’d come home covered in blood, his s/o had kicked him out. He wasn’t going to let that happen again if he cold help it. He assumed his s/o would be sleeping in their bed, since it was three in the morning, but the shriek from the kitchen sent him running in. He never ran, so when he rounded the corner at full-speed, he slipped on a puddle of water and slammed into the wall. “OH MY GOD MICHAEL KILL IT!! KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!!!” They hollered, clutching onto a chair and pointing at a rather large cockroach. He rubbed his sore shoulder and went to go step on the bug when it jumped on his pant leg. He kicked violently a few times before just stopping and staring at his s/o. “MICHAEL IT’S A HUGE ASS BUG!! AND NOW IT’S CRAWLING UP YOUR LEG!!! KILL IIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!!!” They hollered. He felt a tickle at the bottom of his mask and then slapped it. The bug fell on the ground, and went to scurry away, but was crushed under his boot. He shivered and then was tackle-hugged. “OH MY GOD THANK YOU!! IT’S BEEN THERE FOR THE PAST HOUR!!” He sighed and shook his head. He loved his s/o, but that was a little extreme...

Jason: He barged into the house, panting slightly and holding his wounded shoulder. He went to go wake up his s/o so they could patch him up, but the scream from the kitchen called him over in a hurry. He saw his s/o, crouched on the counter with a spatula, staring intently at the floor. He tilted his head. “Jason, there’s a big ass bug on the floor and it’s going to have to DIE OH MY GOD JASON KILL IT! IT’S RIGHT THERE!!” They hollered, pointing at the bug. He walked over and picked the beetle up, then tossed it out the window. They jumped down and put the spatula up slowly. “Is it gone? Is it going to fly back in? WILL IT CRAWL INTO MY EAR TONIGHT?!?” He stared at them wide-eyed. Would that bug seriously do that? He slammed the window closed and hugged his s/o, forgetting momentarily that he was covered in blood and bleeding. “Uh, Jason, you’re shoulder...” He let go and looked sheepishly down at his feet. “Oh! Uh, let me get changed and I’ll patch that up for you. Okay?” He nodded and let them walk out on their own, suspiciously eyeing the window, the beetle pail in the middle of it outside.

Leatherface: He came home with a full-belly, his mamas cooked meatloaf still on his tongue. He had his chainsaw over his shoulder and was calmly walking inside when he heard a loud scream. He ran to the kitchen to see his s/o, perched like a cat on the table, a broom in hand. “Thomas, there’s a giant scorpion in here. Kill. It. Now.” They hissed, staring at the large black scorpion on the floor that sat on the floor in the kitchen by the stove. He stared at it for a moment before looking back at his s/o. “THOMAS KILL IT PLEEEEEAAAAASEEEEEE!!!” They hollered. He shined and carefully strode over to the table. He held out his hand for the broom, which he got. He raised it over his head and slammed it down on the scorpion, catching it’s tail and crushing it. He then picked it up and tossed it out the window. He looked back at his s/o in time to be tackled. “You’re home!!” They smiled and laughed, as if they hadn’t been perched on the table moments earlier. He didn’t care though. He happily squeaked and hugged them back, blood getting on the sides of their shirt.

Pinhead: He entered his s/o’s home, ready to tell them about the torture that (Insert most hated person’s name here) had received today, hoping that this would make them feel better about themselves, but the loud scream from the kitchen made me change his mind. He hurried to the kitchen and looked at the amusing spectacle in front of him. His s/o stood on a chair, on top of the table, pressed up against the ceiling and and screaming in fear at a rather large earwig on the floor. He blinked before walking forward and stepping on it. “Better?” He asked, a bored expression on his face. They whimpered and nodded. “Thanks... When did you get back?” “Just now. When you yelled, I thought you’d been attacked by an intruder.” “Might as well have been, that wouldn’t have been NEARLY as scary! Did you SEE the size of that fucking thing?!?” “Yes, I did. I believe I killed it though...” “Yeah, but STILL!! That thing was HUGE!” “Yes darling.” “Like, fucking GINoURMouS!!” “I think you should stop now...” “Why?” “Your voice...” “NEvER mIND ThaT!!” He sighed. This was going to be a long night...

Hannibal: He blinked slowly at his s/o. They were perched on the sink, clutching Earl Gray to their chest, staring intently at a snake on the floor. “Dear, what on earth are you doing?” “DO you not see the giant ass snake in the middle of the fucking room?!?” They hissed, glaring angrily at him. He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I do. But it’s not a threat. How did it even get in here anyways?” “Earl Gray brought it in. And I don’t know if it’s venomous or not.” “And? Just pick it up behind it head.” “No, it’s scary.” They hissed again. “You know you CAN speak up, right?” “I don’t want to. Get it out.” He sighed before walking over to it and picked it up, the snake hissing and writhing. He gently tossed it outside and closed the door. “It’s gone. You can get down now.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m sure. It’s outside.” “What if it gets back in and kills me in my sleep?” “Then I’ll eat it.”

Billy: He hummed as he walked into the house, his s/o probably sleeping or watching a movie. Or, at least, that’s what he thought. The loud and shrill scream from the kitchen made him jump, and he bolted towards the room that usually smelled like popcorn. He tripped over his costume, falling face-first on the floor and on something rather large that got crushed under his mask. “BABE! BABE WHAT’S WRONG?!?” “Oh, you fixed it.” “What?” “There was a giant ass spider and, well, it’s now on your face...” “HOLY SHIT GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFFGETITOFF!!!” HE ran around the kitchen, fanning at his face. His s/o laughed and almost fell off of the chair they were on. “Billy stop running around. Billy, I have a paper towel. Billy just fucking- BILLY LOOMIS STOP RUNNING!!” They laughed, almost doubling over. He eventually threw the mask off and onto the ground and ended up curled up close to his s/o for the rest of the night. He hated spiders.

Stu: He was the coward. He really was. So he came home and saw his s/o cooing over a fucking TARANTULA and ended up on the chandelier. He stared angrily down at the spider. “Do you need a ladder?” “No, get that thing out of here.” “It’s my friends spider. I’m spider-sitting for the rest of the week. So he’s gotta go into his container. Ain’t that right Claude?” “IT HAS A NAME?!?” “Yes Stu. He has a name. Terrifying, isn’t it?” “YES!!” He hollered. “Stu, you are a  SERIAL killer.” “AND?!? I CAN STILL BE SCARED OF BUGS AND CRAWLIES AND STUFF!!!” “Stu, get down.” “NO!!” “...If I give you a cookie, will you get down?” “...Maybe... BUT ONLY IF YOU PUT THE SPIDER AWAY!” They sighed and put the spider into a container. “Fine. Now get down.” “Cookie first!” “Fine, jeez you big baby. I used to be scare of you you know.” “You mean you aren’t anymore?” “Nope. Especially not after this.” He huffed, and opened his mouth, which got a cookie shoved in it.

Norman: He ran back down the stairs of the motel, hearing his s/o screaming. Had they seen mother kill? Had they been hurt? Where they being robbed?!? He burst into the kitchen and screamed. There was a giant rat sitting in the middle of the room. He joined his shaking s/o on top of the table and held the knife over its head. It sniffed the air and scurried away. “W-well at least I didn’t drop it...” “NORMAN BATES DO NOT JINX US!!!” “I’M S-SORRY!!” The rat climbed up onto the counter. His s/o took the knife and threw it at the rat, nailing it right in the side, pinning it to the wall. There was complete silence before his s/o began to shout and jumped off of the table. “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH! Ohoho!!OH!! Did you SEE that?!? Holy SHIT!! THAT WAS FUCKING AMAZING!!!” They fist bumped the air and ran around, pride decorating their face. He sighed and got down. He took the knife hesitantly and began to gently tap it against the garbage bin to get the rat off. He’d definitively be washing that knife...

David: He walked into his s/o’s house. He was silent, knowing his s/o would probably be asleep. They were trying to transition to his sleep schedule, but he didn’t sleep a lot and they had work. But the hesitant and small voice from the kitchen startled him. “David, are you home?” “Oh. Yeah, hey babe.” “David, there is a giant ass centipede in the kitchen and I want you to come and kill it. Right now.” He snorted and walked into the kitchen. “No need to over-OH MY GOD NO!! FUCK THAT!!!” He saw the giant ass centipede. He did not lie that he saw the giant ass centipede. He didn’t like that giant ass centipede in the least. “Babe please kill it.” “Uh, no, YOU kill it.” He climbed up on the wall and stared at the giant ass centipede that CLEARLY didn’t belong in the natural world. “Babe please...” He looked up at his s/o, who was crying and clearly terrified. He blinked in surprise. “Okay. Fine. But that thing does NOT belong here!” “Yeah...” He jumped off the wall and ran towards the counter, grabbing a huge cookbook that was never used and had a hard cover, and he tossed it at the bug. It made a sickening squelch as the book hit it. He sighed and walked towards his s/o. “It’s gone. Also, that cookbook needs to be burned now.” They nodded in agreement, letting him lift them into his arms and carry them to bed. 

Carrie: She didn’t actively kill unless someone survived her massacre and had the chance to have kids. She came home, now covered in blood, to her s/o standing on top of a chair. “CARRIE THERE IS A FUCKING MOUSE IN THE KITCHEN!!!” She sighed and dropped a pot on the mouse from the living room. “... CARRIE THERE IS NOW A DEAD MOUSE AND A BROKEN POT ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR!” She sighed and rolled her eyes. 

Samara: Her s/o passed out on top of the table. They’d seen the large spider and they’d climbed up before passing out. You see, Samara’s s/o may be able to stand up to her, but they had an extreme fear of bugs. They had a terrible case of arachnophobia. And the large spider slowly creeping towards the table was going to get itself killed. Samara stood over it, glaring. It skidded away, but she was caging it in her long black locks. It jumped up onto her dress and froze, then fell off, dead. She walked up to her s/o and gently shook them, waking them up enough to get them to shuffle to their room. She watched them sleep for a moment before going back to the kitchen and disposing of the bug via garbage disposal. Then she walked back to her s/o’s room and curled up next to them, tossing a blanket over them both and falling asleep. Her s/o really was a colourful figure...

[paleozooseum-blog]

Museum Review: Field Museum of Natural History Chicago

I may be biased in this review (which is also why it is my first post) as this museum is near and dear to my heart. When I was growing up it seemed like we went to the Field Museum every other weekend (with Brookfield Zoo on the other alternating weekends. My now husband’s/ then boyfriend’s proms were held there. I’ve also done several internships there. AND my husband proposed to me on their front steps. In short I love it. But why? 

*Pictured below is me at my senior prom, 2012

The Field Museum is broken up into certain areas of study (Geology, Zoology, Botany, and Anthropology). Their major exhibits follow suit. The Evolving Planet is what it sounds like: is takes you through from Earth’s beginning until today and what animals were around during each time period. Very well done, it follows a single path, so it’s not a wandering-type exhibit. Since I am biased for the paleontology exhibit, here are my favorite displays:

1.The Cambrian room, where a realistic, animated video of the weirdest creatures that you can imagine that once scuttled about the ocean floor plays with a soothing musical score, showcases a variety of trilobites.

2.The carboniferous forest and Mazon Creek room. Imagine a forest with a giant (non-scary) centipede and that’s what you get with this room. Gorgeous. The Illinois state fossil, the Tully Monster, is housed at the end of it. Just google it; it really is the weirdest choice of a state fossil, but hey when you live in a state of mostly crinoids and shelled creatures, it’s pretty interesting.

3. The  synapsid and “amphibian” room. This room gets you to the roots of where mammals and reptiles diverged. It has a soft spot in my heart since I helped rehouse Dimetrodon fossils in their collections. Yes, Dimetrodon is a relative of mammals not dinosaurs as many toys and movies want you to believe. The amphibian tree of life gets all wishy washy as you go earlier in time hence the quotes.

4. Its largest room is of course the dinosaur room. SUE the famous T-rex lives at the museum and is currently being rehoused into a room next to the main dinosaur display (she used to be on the main floor of the museum but now a Titanosaur has taken her place). The main favorites are all here: Stegosaurus, several Ceratopsians and Sauropods, a few Theropods, and Parasaurolophus. A childhood favorite is making the noise of a Parasaurolophus with their air compression chamber. There are animated videos and buttons that pronounce dinosaur names. *Pictured below is me being a raptor (this isn’t a raptor however) wrangler circa the first Jurassic World Movie

5. I’m less of a mammal-person than anything but their evolution of horses display as well as the evolution of hominids is informative for those interested in “seeing evolution.” There is also an impressive giant sloth display, and an ice age display (can’t have a paleontology exhibit without a mammoth!). Don’t forget to play with the very-dated tar display showing how larger animals had a much tougher time getting out of tar by allowing you to pull up on bars submerged in tar. Many memories with that display.

There is also a large collection of minerals on display as well as the Hall of Gems, Hall of Jade, and a meteorite display showcased in true museum fashion behind cases with small labels and informative signs. Their botany collection is often overlooked but it’s worth to go check out as I’ve learned so many new things about plants I already know about as well as about plants I may never see. It’s a pretty big display of plants that people tend to walk by but I definitely advocate a walk through. The Egypt exhibit is excellent. You have the choice of walking through a ruin (with real hieroglyphics!) where you walk down a winding staircase to the lower level, where there are countless animal and human mummies, as well as artifacts. Theres a display on how they used to gather water that used to allow kids of all ages to try their bucket system with water but I guess there must have been messes as now it’s just something to look at (it’s less fun to look at as it is to dunk the bully system into the water). But look for fish in the reeds display as they are real. The Nature Walk is an amazing collection of taxidermy animals. Theodore Roosevelt hunted some of these animals for conservation purposes! The halls are a mix of animals that live in the same environment and by type of animal (i.e. birds, cats). You could spend hours just in there alone. The real lions of Tsavo are here! An old but goody is the Underground Adventure exhibit where you “shrink” to bug size and walk amongst huge, animatronic arthropods. There isn’t much to read about but it’s still fun. There are also displays of Ancient Americas, Pacific Islands, China, Africa, and conservation that offer insight into a variety of cultures and showcases the work of the scientists at the museum. The Field Museum has many traveling and in-house-made exhibits that are always worth the extra mummy. Currently, an exhibit on Dinosaurs from Antarctica (featuring someone from the museum with whom I have interned/ volunteered on research projects) is a pay-to-see exhibit and it is well done with showing how field expeditions in Antarctica go, displaying full size fossil skeletons and reconstructions, and exhibiting other work besides paleontology being performed at labs at the bottom of the world. Gift shops (plural) are great but the large main one is outside of the museum ticket counters and sometimes something you want is at a different gift shop back in the museum so it’s not exactly a one-stop-shop; see something you want? just get it then.

On a side note, Members Nights and Dozing with the Dinos are AMAZING. You get to see labs, behind the scenes collections, and what’s up and coming for members nights, and there are programs and of course camping out besides your favorite displays for Dozing with the Dinos. For you, liquor-lovers out there, they do special nighttime events with their own and local brews.

The Field Museum also participated in the March for Science and Science Expo in 2017 and held a science day in 2017 (they even gave us matching shirts so that we could walk as a unit *see below photo). Excellent museum? Check. Huge collection? Check. Advocates for the sciences? A Million Checks.

A little expensive but worth everything. Expect to spend several hours enjoying it.