head canon: the igglybuff line as terrestrial cephalopods
So, it’s been a while, but I hard headcanon a handful of pokemon as terrestrial cephalopods. I’ve done some posts in the past about mimikyu, jinx, and tangela and their cephalopod characteristics and other artists have done some amazing artistic interpretations of unlikely pokemon like slugma/magcargo.
But today I discovered this beautiful, weird banded piglet squid (Helicocranchia pfefferi):
Peeps, this looks like igglybuff!
Sort of. First, a few pfefferi facts:
They have tentacles above their eyes and two small, paddle-y fins at the end of their mantle. They can make their eyes glow. They have ammonium ions in their blood that helps keep them buoyant. As they mature they lose their glassy translucence and become a pinkish red.
What really reminded me of igglybuff seeing the photos of H. pfefferi was it’s little tangle of tentacles above its eyes. Then there were the forward-facing eyes on the glassy juvenile. Those tentacles, the big round eyes, the little foot-like fins (see last photo below), its roundular buoyancy-- how could I not think of this cutie?
And, yeah, this is totally a headcanon, but when I try to think of realistic interpretations and taxonomies for the igglybuff line, I’ve always had a hard time. They’re so simple, almost featureless. Even the features they do have are weird-- a little spiral (hair? colouring?), the lumpy head extrusions, bonelessly flopping feet and fingerless arms. Sure, it’s a cartoon, but it exists in the same world as far more anatomically detailed, “textured” ‘mon like, say, inkay or . And unlike other baby pokemon, igglybuff doesn’t really become more complex as it evolves-- wigglytuff is very basic in terms of design and anatomy elements.
But if we imagine that, like tangela and jinx, igglybuff and its evolved forms are cephalopods adapted for a terrestrial environment, the external simplicity make sense. The smooth, balloon-like mantle of H. pfefferi accounts for the skin; the line’s buoyant movements fit well with an aquatic animal’s movements; igglybuff’s squiggle could be a tentacle or maybe a vestigial siphon; the lumpen appendages on the head are modified or tightly curled tentacles; the featureless limbs are fins or, in the case of jigglypuff and wigglytuff’s ears, modified tentacles. Obviously it’s not perfect, but I like it.
So you should all go read that really nice, quiet little post that’s been going around. I thought about it, did a drawing, and wrote a short flash-fiction story to go with it, below the cut. (Fun fact, the narrator of this story is the same one who narrated my other Pokemon flash fic. about goomies.)
Late nights
I’m glad I’m not a kid anymore. Nostalgia is great, but only because it’s like being a tourist in some of the shittiest, most frustrating times in your life. When you’re a kid you feel everything so. Much. I remember I used to care about the smallest things. I cried once because I lost a battle. Which, okay, that’s fine if that’s you, but I don’t cry in public and I never really did, not if I could help it.
So, yeah. I’m glad that I have a job and my own place. Glad that I’m more settled now, even if Lumios City’s apartments and food and taxes are ridiculously expensive. Adulting has its downsides, but there’s wine and paychecks and a place to put lots and lots of houseplants. Oof, and all the battling you do when you’re younger? I’m not sure how anyone has the energy. Sylvie’s all grey on her ears and ribbons, and I don’t think she misses it much, either.
I took Sylvie to the Pokémon Centre the other day and that’s always a blast of nostalgia. There are things you miss about being a kid, like, really miss. There’s a smell to Pokémon Centres, no matter where you are, especially if you walk back past the desk into hallways in the back. It’s a little antiseptic—it is a hospital, after all—but more than that there’s the smell of cheap ink and newsprint from those stacks of free local papers they always have. From the public kitchen you can always smell coffee and hot chocolate, old spices that some ambitious older trainer bought and then left in a cupboard thinking (wrongly) that someone else might use it, and of course apples—they always have apples. Usually someone has done some baking, especially if you’re in Kalos. And there’s you can usually smell a hint of fresh linens for the over-nighters and cheap laundry detergent from the washers.
The other day that smell almost makes me cry again—almost. Nothing sad, just... that smell seeped into me when I was younger and just thinking about it is like... meeting myself, my favourite version of myself from some of the best of those times as a kid. And that smell always reminds me of one night in particular...
In Kalos most of the travellers stay in the hotels. Sure, the stereotype that we’re all rich and fussy is ridiculous, but it’s definitely true that the hotels are more popular with overnighters than the PCs. And, I mean, after the bed bug outbreak in a couple of Lumios Centers, you can’t really blame anyone.
That night I always remember, there were only five of us. I’d been traveling with this girl called Mirri for a bit, and we’d thought it was a good idea to walk all morning and afternoon and then spend a few hours at the aquarium, which... it wasn’t. We were both too exhausted to make food. There’s something about Ambrette town—there’s the smell and sounds of the ocean to the west, but you also get the dust and the dry winds coming out of the badlands to the east, and I think something about them both wears you out, even when you’re a kid and have bottomless wells of energy.
So Mirri and I start talking to the other kids who are staying there-- Guillermo, Michel, and Kam. Like I said, we were too tired to cook, and Kam shared this curry she’d made. I’d never met a kid who could cook like that before. She was the kind of person who would actually use those spices that were always lying around, and it made me feel so sophisticated to know someone who could cook like that.
Everyone left for the night and Nurse Joy went to bed and it was just us. Mirri had some candy, so we shared that, and we let our pokémon play. We showed off our pokedexes and badges—I remember being really impressed that Kam had three—and we all talked about how cool Grant was and we traded stories of the strongest pokémon each of us had seen. We drank too much hot chocolate and Guillermo took some pokepuffs from a private stash in the kitchen and we all felt really wicked and adventurous. We stayed up so late that our pokémon fell asleep, and then everyone but Kam and I fell asleep. Kam was quiet in a group but when everyone was asleep she talked more, and she laughed at all my jokes. We talked about what we missed from home. What we didn’t miss.
And we just... talked like that for hours, even though we’d been strangers, with the hum of the massive old fridge and the air filter (for the dust) and the solar panels on the roof clicking as they cooled off. There was the smell of our sleeping bags and the taste of old candy and hot chocolate in our mouths (we were too adventurous to brush our teeth) and I’m twenty-eight now and I still remember how I thought that Kam’s eyes, reflecting the light from the public phone screen, were the most beautiful sight I had ever seen, and I remember that I thought about them for weeks. When we finally said goodnight, me on the floor and Kam on a couch, and we settled down and started to drift off I remember that, for no reason, I suddenly opened my eyes to look at her, and I caught her just as she opened her eyes to look at me, and we didn’t say anything, we just smiled and then went to sleep and that was that. After we said goodbye I didn’t see her again.
I haven’t sat and talked to a stranger like that in years, and that’s okay because—let’s be real— most strangers are the living worst. That night wasn’t even the best night I had on the road because there were so many nights like that, nights where I found people who were all excited about the same things I was, found myself in little groups of people and we all thought each other person was fascinating and beautiful. Nights where we shared things—food and stories and tiny moments just before sleep—in ways that adults don’t. You just don’t when you’re older, and that’s okay because I don’t really want to now. But sometimes I take Sylvie into a PC and I get a whiff of that smell and it just hits me right in the nostalgia and for some reason I always remember that night in Ambrette, and... yeah. I’m glad I’m not a kid anymore, but nostalgia? Nostalgia is great.
