Formative childhood stories

_{(Originally written June 2023)}

If it wasn't already implied on several pages, I didn't have a good childhood. But like nearly every misunderstood genius/madman in history, we all have moments that were formative - for better or for worse. Here's some of mine.

Of course I love Beatrix Potter! DUH! It's Mecore! But Beatrix Potter is actually the origin of Mecore. The first gift I was ever given - that's right, as a baby - was a book containing all of Beatrix Potter's stories with illustrations. It's no wonder I'm like that, I spend my single digits reading slice-of-life stories about cute little bunnies and mice. I watched animated adaptions too (we all had a Peter Rabbit VHS, don't lie), but I don't have it anymore.

There was one story I liked in particular, The Tale of Samuel Whiskers... I don't have a timeline of when I liked this story, but I know why I did. I REALLY liked the role reversal of a kitten being attempted to be eaten by rats!!! That's not how it's supposed to be...but the rules were broken! I watched the animated adaption so often my mother noticed (when I asked her where my book could be recently, she immediately mentioned that I really liked this one), I was fixated on the scene where the rats tied up and tried to make pudding out of poor Tom Kitten. Don't worry, he escaped... but a part of me wanted the rats to win for once.

I just didn't understand why rodents were "bad"...Especially when another piece of media really hammered in those feelings.

In 1990 there was a shitty animated adaption of The Nutcracker I saw reruns of on Cartoon Network during the holidays. I've never rewatched it since, I tried to, but just found it boring and the characters ugly. But one scene really sticks out in my memory was a scene where the Rat King gets his tail jammed in a drawer by the protagonist. It upset me so much! Every time it aired on TV I would run out of the room crying. (My father remembers seeing me do this, in fact.) Why is ratphobia so rampant?

I had a pet hamster named Henry for less than a day. My parents bought him without knowing how to take care of one, so while setting up his cage in the living room, he ended up biting my father's ear until it bled. (He was probably scared...) Henry was returned to the pet store the next day. I was so upset, I didn't understand what Henry did wrong!

I would often think about the pet I never got to have, even hearing the name "Henry" made me sad... When he was returned to the pet store, I saw a rat that was very well behaved and was so cute... An employee even let me pet it! (Did you know rats bite the least out of pet rodents?) I asked my mother, "Can I get a rat?" and she responded "NO! Not a nasty rat!" Then in middle school, I got 3, and 2 in high school. Womp womp. (My mother likes rats now, for the record.)

My childhood dog was a Miniature Schnauzer/Skye Terrier mutt named Pepper. She cost $7 to be rescued from the pound (the vet expenses were more though), and had a lot of personality. She was also very insane when she went into heat... We couldn't afford to spay her, so my parents ended up getting her a "boyfriend" to take her frustrations out on. *turns to the camera and winks*

_{(not my photo)}

She used to hump a giant Hello Kitty plush, but later we gave her this large plush toy of Tramp that was big enough for her. Hm...yeah, he kind of looks like her type. However...over the years she humped him so much he literally broke. My parents had to buy a new giant Tramp plush off eBay, and sewed the head of the old one on it. She had a Frankenboyfriend Husbando just for her...

The events that led to up this aren't funny, but the incident itself is. I was 5 years old and had to get an MRI scan. The results were normal, but one thing stuck out to me was this doctor pulled me aside to observe me. He was very interested in my motor skills and how I walked/talked, and wanted to watch me move around. He asked my mother questions about it and openly remarked how "fascinating" it was to her right in front of me.

It made me SO upset! I didn't understand what was so strange or "fascinating" when I was just acting as I normally do! I couldn't help walking weird (to be fair, I do) or any of that! I was so angry over how I was "being treated like a specimen" (my exact words)...but in hindsight, I realize I do that to other people now... Maybe we're all just specimens who should be observed. I think this is one of many events that is the reason why I have such an outsider or even dehumanizing perceptions of people, it's just the funniest one to me.

In hindsight, I was diagnosed as autistic a decade later. So maybe he was onto something, but he could've done it in a way that wouldn't be so upsetting to a child...

When I was 7-8, my parents were busy because my mother was currently pregnant with (and later gave birth to) my sister. I was in a bad school and didn't have any friends...so after playing Yoshi's Story and Mario Party a lot at home, Yoshi became my friend. This was when I had brief dial-up/modem access to the internet. I basically spent my time (and it was a long time to load!!!) going on Yoshi websites and looking at merchandise on eBay. It's too bad I only had a N64, since I would've loved Yoshi's Island!! I also had the player's guide for Yoshi's Story and read it a lot.

(not my photos)

My favorite was Black Yoshi, who I went lengths to try to unlock! (The easiest way is in the Bone Dragon Pit, by the way.) I had a plush of Black Yoshi that I brought with me everywhere and made talk. I don't have it anymore, though...the plush is apparently rare. I ended up getting a new one in 2010. I also ate cantaloupe and honeydew melons a lot, because they're Yoshi's favorite foods. I drew Yoshi so much (I even drew a pregnant Yoshi, since my mother was), and had Yoshi dreams. Yoshi stopped being my friend after I moved...that's when Charizard1246 came into the picture.

Yoshi wasn't my first character obsession, technically. A year or two before I also was like that with Kirby. I was given a copy of Kirby's Dream Land 2 and loved the illustrations in the manual... I cut out the images of Kirby's friends and was very possessive over it to the point I was upset when I lost them at school. (You'd think my favorite would be Rick the hamster, but I I liked Kine too.) I even tried to make a Kirby plush toy at school by drawing Kirby on two large pieces of construction paper, stuffing it, and then stapling the paper together.

I shortly decided to give Kirby a friend. He had a name, but it was an inappropriate word (I didn't know it was bad then), so I'll just call him H. H was a green Kirby that had 2 curly antennas on his head, I would imagine that if he was in the game he would be able to fly with them like Tails from Sonic. (I never played a "real" Sonic game then, I just had the edutainment games on the Sega Pico.)

Modern rendition of H

I drew H everywhere...even on posters and walls.

I started officially going online at age 10, during my last grade of elementary school. The butchered-but-nostalgic 4Kids dub of Yu-Gi-Oh was currently airing, and it was the talk of the playground. (You bet I looked online to read about the uncensored version, which I couldn't watch in 2002...) I bought booster packs at Walmart often, hoping I'd get a Blue Eyes White Dragon... it was my favorite card alongside Dark Magician Girl.

Yu-Gi-Oh cards were swiftly banned at school, but I browsed fansites where people made fake Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh/etc. cards with blanks provided. I thought I'd be slick and make my own humorous fake cards and bring them to school. They're not REALLY Yu-Gi-Oh cards, they're fakes with stupid jokes on them! But not only did my teacher take them up, he lectured me about copyright and IPs in front of the class... He made me think I was doing something illegal and I was too scared to do something like that ever again. (I wasn't, though. It was for personal use and technically a parody.)

I'm aware this sounds like one of those Lying On The Internet™ "and everyone on the bus clapped!" type of stories, but this teacher was prone to discussing complex and frankly loaded subjects with a bunch of 5th graders...

• See also: Wonder Showzen.
• When introducing myself to someone, the first thing I asked was "do you like frogs?" (It's an honest question.) I was obsessed with tree frogs for a period of time!
• Speaking of frogs, for most of my life I slept with a plush coqui backpack my father got at an airport in Puerto Rico. Technically I still do, but it's a rag now...
• Another frog-related story is an episode of a nature show (probably Jeff Corwin) on Animal Planet featured a species of frog that looked REALLY muscular. I would repeatedly watch reruns of this episode just to see this frog, I thought it was a real-life Poliwrath...
• I forgot to brush my teeth one night and freaked out because I thought my teeth would fall out like in that Ren & Stimpy episode.
• My character obsessions before Yoshi, Kirby, Blue Eyes White Dragon, and various cartoon mice were Snoopy, Pooka from Anastasia, Bugs Bunny, Dorothy Ann from The Magic Schoolbus (I thought she looked similar to me), Veemon, Jigglypuff, and Suicune.
• I didn't have crushes as a child, but the closest things that could qualify that were on par with the (platonic) character obsessions mentioned above were Lola Bunny and Sawyer from Cat's Don't Dance (yes, I saw them in theaters), and arguably Filia Ul Copt from Slayers TRY. 🤦 And others I'm embarassed by...
• Before I got my coqui, I slept with a plush Snoopy. Then my character obsession with Pooka from Anastasia happened, and I got a Pooka plush... I was dead convinced that Snoopy was NOT happy about this and drew Snoopy fighting and humiliating Pooka constantly. My kindergarten teacher asked me, "why can't Snoopy and Pooka just be friends?!" But they're NOT friends! Snoopy HATES Pooka and that's that!
• The plush Snoopy had a different personality from the canon Snoopy, by the way. He was extremely rude.
• The other character obsession crossover I can remember was Kirby and Jigglypuff, because they're both playable in SSB64. I imagined they would get along well, not sure about Jigglypuff and H though.